I think these images have always lived inside me, waiting for expression in their metaphoric power. After decades of teaching life drawing, The Womb Children, a name spontaneously scribbled into my working notes, came when I no longer worked from a model. Without a visual source, with my hand in motion, they poured themselves into drawings in ink, in pencil; they revealed themselves in the blackness of mono prints; they developed skins slowly in the long labour of oil painting. I felt a tremendous freedom when they were born. And more keep coming. Without reference for their being, they are self determining.
The Womb Children are just that: they are human forms reminding us of the perpetual gestation of life, that there is constantly a new beginning, a new search and awakening, all of which is winked up on the continuum of change and is evolving. In their sanctuary, their receptivity suggests their inner belonging to something larger. The Womb Children still belong to their soul space.
We are all children inside. We are all ancient beings, our genesis written into the sensory "clay" of our bodies. Intrinsically spiritual beings, we encounter our humanness. The path home is returning to the stillpoint, our primal consciousness where all life is connected, and upon arrival stripping off the layers, naked, announcing 'This is my Home'.
Reception: Saturday, October 5, 1:00 PM - Register Here
BIO
Andrea Mossop began painting in oils at the age of six with her father at Lake Huron. His gift to her of her own small paint box with little tubes of oil, turps and brushes encouraged her lifelong passion. Andrea and her father drew together from a beautiful articulated ballerina doll on the dining room table. And so began Andrea's love of life drawing and interest in movement. Years later, drawing the dancers from the corner on the floor of company class of the Toronto Dance Theatre fuelled her gestural approach to life drawing. Her connection to nature and movement was shaped by life on a farm with her four children.
With a BA in Fine Art from Western University, Andrea completed a year of advanced studio work at the Ontario College of Art. In 1974 she moved to Brockville and began teaching for St Lawrence College in the Continuing Education department. Her first classes were outreach postings in the small towns. These classes became accredited as part of a Fine Art Certificate Program offered part-time both on campus and in the surrounding area. Fifty years of teaching painting, life drawing, colour theory and art history to students wanting to learn in their adult and senior years included teaching for the 1000 Islands Summer School of the Arts, the Haliburton School of the Arts, Ottawa School of Art in Orleans, in Toronto and privately. Andrea currently mentors artists online.
Website: www.andreamossop.ca
