Leonora Carrington

Claire Brentnall

One of my favourite artists, Leonora Carrington has sadly died aged 94. A painter, sculptor and writer, Carrington worked closely with Mexican artist Remedios Varo after moving to Mexico in the 1960s. Before her emigration, Carrington was linked to the Surrealists and is well-known for her relationship with Max Ernst.

Alchemy was something that Carrington explored through her artwork and writing, but in an altogether different way to the males of the Surrealist movement. Alchemy paired with the erotic was seen as a fitting model on which to base the union of opposites of men and women by male artists of the Surrealist movement, in order to exploit the female spiritual connection with the unconscious and advocate traditional views of the active male and submissive female. Contradictory to the male utilisation of alchemical symbolism, Carrington’s paintings, much like those of Varo, distinctly lack the portrayal of sexual interaction. Instead, she chose to create her own esoteric symbolic discourse in order to portray the magical creativity of woman.

The wonderful painting Kitchen Garden on the Eyot was created in Mexico around the time of the birth of Carrington’s first son. Her newfound familial role in Mexico, including her marriage to Enrique “Chiqui” Weisz had a great positive effect on her life, and instead of restricting her artistic output she took inspiration from the domestic duties she had to perform. She incorporated family life, cooking and her occult interests to simultaneously elevate painting and ‘woman’s work’ to magical acts. This was a notion that informed her esoteric pictorial language for many years, as Carrington did not simply reject the roles of mother and wife, but imbued this lifestyle with magical significance.

Subsequently, Carrington is often considered as being a positive model for female artists, moving away from a simple polarisation of male and female and moving towards a notion, supported by feminist writer Shoshanna Felman, of viewing male and female within separate, unique frameworks.