Psyche & Imagination - Online Abstract
The Art

Rosemary Walbancke

Rosemary Walbancke is an artist who is interested in the connections between psychology and art, especially in using art as a medium for healing. Id developed an interest in investigating visual layering through the mediums of charcoal, pencil and printing, especially etching. This was achieved by my time spent at Byam Shaw School of Fine Art. From there I went on to develop a career in restoration, working mainly on antique furniture as an upholsterer. I have been in the profession for twenty years.

Through circumstances, outside influences and pressures, I found myself in a questionable state of existence. It was a complex time, one which I needed to unravel before I was lost to it. My ego and my health were at war and so decision was made. Therapy, where I learnt to explore and understand the self, of which I had lost. From this exploratory period, I have been introduced to a place that I call The Edge. This is where I have not only found the beginnings of the me that holds so much tumour, but also an inner world which wishes to give understanding and answers in the form of imagery. Through these images I have been seeing the whys, wheres and hows of personal pain. Once I understand the images which come through, Im instantly linked to a network leading me to the stem cause of the emotional beginnings, seeing them immerging. From here, with the image, I can then nurture a healing process.

This begins with the balancing on the edge of an emotion and its dynamics are like standing on the edge of a primeval volcano looking down into the swirling hot magma, being hypnotized by its energies. Images then immerge with an essence and form that is like viewing the origins of anger or fear and even tranquillity. From a dark unclear vision it is like a photographic image being drawn into focus. It seems to come, not only on an inner visual level, but from a biological level also. Through the muscles, the blood and the nerve endings. Every molecule is at work in remembering and it feeds into my creative thought for me to understand. It feels like the whole body is at work trying to help me understand the emotions true form. The images are my bodys voice.

Through my therapy sessions have thus been compiled a series of works which have been pulled from my inner world, The Edge. I have embraced and understood and nurtured them. Making the tumours tangible through art, giving them an origin of birth. Fear, anxiety, loss, resentment, betrayal, keeping secrets, all have there own dramas enveloped in tumours and buried deep in the atoms of our memories and sometime emerging as physical problems too. I found that society moves very quickly. Large and small tumours build up, overflowing into one another, with no time to heal before the next one comes into view. I have found myself so inspired by artists such as Edvard Munch and Frida Khalo, who have helped in allowing myself to let go with the Surreality of life, and to listen from the inside out.

The pieces I will show will be of images created from my one-hour psychotherapy sessions. There will be two pieces on canvas and the medium used is charcoal, ink and acrylics.