NATALIE MEYJES

FAIRYTALE

Long & Ryle GalleryLondon 2013

NATALIE MEYJES

FAIRYTALE

Exhibition 14th March - 26th April 2013Long & Ryle Gallery, London

LONG & RYLE 4 John Islip Street, London SW1P 4PX

t: 44 (0) 207 834 1434. e: gallery@long-and-ryle.comwww.longandryle.com

Tues - Fri 10am - 5:30pm Sat 11-2pm

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believe and in our actual lives. Real events are sometimes woven into fairy tales, and sometimes a true story sounds like make believe. In these views into moments of magic and transformation, the fairytales of Lewis Carroll, the Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, and Aesop are interpreted along with others less known: The Green Fairy and the Russian witch Baba Yaga. Heroes of the stage and the arena, modern masters of the art of transformation, also have fairytale stories to tell. Some tales frighten, but there is reward for those who do not turn away and an enchanting vision remains for those who gaze with childlike eyes.

nce upon a time, seeking a path, the magic of nature, task and reward, courage, passion, transformation, and ‘dreams come true’ are fundamentals in the stories we tell in the world of make

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Enchantment is a magic spell as strong and ephemeral as a spider’s web. Sometimes it is a veil that hangs over the eyes, altering perception or providing a screen through which other worlds can be seen. At times it may be a cloak that envelops completely: a cape of invisibility or the disguise of a sorcerer. The elements and mysteries of nature combined with the knowledge of alchemy are thought to enable enchantment and transformation.

Enchantment

33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with birdcage of foxribs, deer antlers, mushrooms, thistle, crystal egg, electric lights

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Absinthe, O my lively liquor, It seems, when I drink you I inhale the young forest’s soul During the beautiful green season.

Your perfume disconcerts me And in your opalescence I see the full heavens of yore, As through an open gate.

What matter, O refuge of the damned.That you a vain paradise be, If you appease my need;

And if, before I enter the gate,You make me put up with life,By accustoming me to death. Sonnet d’Absinthe by Raoul Ponchon

French romantic poets and painters of the nineteenth century were supposedly inspired by fantastic visions induced by the potent spirit absinthe. But this Green Fairy encouraged men and women to abandon all else in pursuit of the psychoactive dreams she poured for them. This addictive extract of wormwood, fennel, and anise was banned in 1915.

Green Fairy

33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with reptile skull, claws, electric lights

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Iconic ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky was especially known for his gravity defying jump. As witnesses would describe it he would rise, and then pause in the air before coming down. A passionately adored performer and provocatively modern choreographer, Nijinsky understood that his genius came with a debilitating madness. In 1919, at the age of 31, Nijinsky gave his final performance for a private audience at a hotel in St. Moritz. Prior to dancing he was temperamental: refusing to move from his chair, he needed prodding from the piano accompanist and he snapped at his wife Romola who commented, “He was like a tiger who could at any moment destroy us”. When it was over, Nijinsky sat down, put his hand over his heart and said “The little horse is tired”. He never danced again.

Nijinsky

33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with squirrel, electric lights

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with shoe stay, electric lights

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The music of Dimitri Shostakovich was denounced by the communist party in 1936. Political attitude later reversed, and he was honoured in 1941 when his Seventh Symphony, also called Leningrad Symphony, became a national symbol of Russian courage. Fortune turned again in 1948 when the composer was once more listed as a political enemy. Most of his music was banned, and any privileges previously granted to his family were withdrawn. Fearing his arrest, Shostakovich spent his nights in a chair on the landing so as not to upset his family with the terror of seeing him dragged from his bed and taken away by Stalin’s police. In 1930, Shostakovich presented a modern opera called ‘The Nose’ based on the story of the same title written by Gogol in 1836. The tale unfolds like a nonsensical dream: A barber finds a rogue nose in a loaf of bread, and he struggles against authority to dispose of it. Nose-less, and therefore without authority, a minor official strives to regain his nose, even when it has surpassed him in rank and refuses to rejoin his face. It is interesting to note that, in Russian, hoc (nose) spelled in reverse means dream.

Shostakovich

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In one of the tales of the Grimm Brothers, a King is curious to discover why his 12 daughters awake exhausted every morning, with their beautiful satin slippers in tatters. A princess for a bride is promised to any suitor who can solve the mystery. Many fortune seekers try and fail, but one young man heeds the advice of an old wise woman. He veils himself with an invisible cloak, follows the princesses through an underground river on to a distant palace where he sees the young ladies dance the night away at a magical ball. To validate his story the young man presents the king with three items brought back from this subterranean world that the young ladies visit nightly: a branch of silver, a branch of gold, and a jewelled goblet. Mystery solved, the eldest princess and the young suitor are wed.

Dancing Princesses

33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with snakeskin, butterflies, electric lights

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Once upon a snowy winter’s eve, Kay’s beloved grandmother recounts a tale of white bees swarming in clouds that appear like snowflakes in a swirl. She tells Kay and his best friend Gerda that where the snowflakes (bees) swirl thickest is where their majestic queen can be found. As this fairytale of H.C. Andersen’s unfolds, Kay’s heart and eye are suddenly pierced with a tiny glass shard from a wickedly enchanted mirror that had shattered when it fell to earth. Bewitched, Kay turns away from all that he loves and follows the Snow Queen. Her icy kiss makes him forget the life he loves at home. Kay climbs into the Snow Queen’s splendid sleigh, wraps himself in her fur blankets and they speed away to her ice kingdom.

Snow Queen

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with fur, silver, glass, electric lights

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Hans Christian Andersen’s mermaid surrenders her beautiful voice in exchange for legs and feet that will take her ashore to a prince who promises his love after she saves him from drowning at sea. The pain of her transformation is likened to a sword piercing her body. Aboard ship, when she dances with complete passion and grace at the wedding party of her beloved prince and the princess he mistakes to be his savior, the little mermaid feels as though she is dancing on daggers; so tender are her new feet. Speechless, she cannot tell the prince that it was she who saved him from the shipwreck and not the lovely bride whom he has chosen. She cannot stop the marriage and yet she cannot stop loving him. Unlucky in love, perhaps Andersen wrote this beautiful fairytale as an expression of love that he could not voice.

Little Mermaid

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with toy raft, sea horses, electric lights

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A modern fairy tale unfolds in a big city. Here, the mysterious woods where magical events transpire is now a small, busy nightclub with an abundance of garlands, costumes, piñatas, and fairy lights adorning the bar. It is the story of a young girl from a rural town who secretly follows her father down a yellow brick road to a great harbour city bridged by a Golden Gate. She traces his path to a brightly decorated but windowless chamber where all who enter practice the art of transformation by dressing in full costume and character. All fantasy and make believe is permitted. Dressing in double disguise and joining in with the entertainers, the young girl enchants the audience with her amusing performances of song and dance. She thus transforms herself into a most powerful pop star Empress in her father’s newly found Kingdom of Queens.

Trannyshack

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with leather, studs, electric lights

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In The Legend of the Green Knight, a lady presents her champion with a green garter for protection. Here, the green garter transforms into the medallioned greenbelt of a boxing champion, a trophy of his triumph.

Well she’s walking through the clouds With a circus mind that’s running round Butterflies and zebras And moonbeams and fairy tales That’s all she ever thinks about Riding with the wind.

When I’m sad, she comes to me With a thousand smiles, she gives to me free It’s alright she says it’s alright Take anything you want from me, Anything. Fly on little wing, Yeah yeah, yeah, little wing.

Little Wing by Jimmy Hendrix, 1967

Champion

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with butterfly, bee, electric lights

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Nature and spiritualism are key themes in fairytales. Reverend Charles Kingsley’s early fairytale, The Waterbabies, A Fairytale for a Land Baby (1866), includes references to both Darwinism and Christian redemption. What is presumed to be true, seen or unseen, is a curious notion in science, religion, and in fairy tales. Kingsley reminds us that no one can say a thing does not exist just because they have not seen it:

‘How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none ... And no one has a right to say that no water babies exist till they have seen no water babies existing, which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water babies.’ The magic world of the fairytale requires open minds, hearts, and eyes.

Fairytale

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with storybook pages, electric lights

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The wood is the host for many fairytales. Ancient trees witness stories of magical creatures, frightening magicians and lost children. Caves, hermit huts, hollow stumps, and nests shelter wondrous beasts and wandering souls. Nature weaves through all living things. Interior and exterior space entwine as trees, nests and branches take root within and without.

“One space spreads through all creatures equally - inner - world - space. Birds quietly flying go flying through us. O, I that want to grow! the tree I look outside at’s growing in me!

I have a house within when I need care.I have a guard within when I need rest. The love that I have had! -Upon my breastThe beauty of the world clings, to weep there.”

Excerpt from ‘August 1914’, R.M. Rilke, Poems 1906 – 1926, Trans. J B Leishman, Hogarth Press 1976

Rilke 1914

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with bird’s nest, gold leaf, electric lights

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Lewis Carroll ’s Alice begins her adventures in Wonderland by falling down a rabbit hole: the passage way of the pocket watch - carrying White Rabbit. She spies shelves of books and a jar of orange marmalade as she tumbles down the dark passage into a world of light.

Earthquake

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33 x 23 x 13cm Mixed media with clock mechanism, fur, gold leaf, electric lights

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“Let’s pretend …there’s a way of getting through into the Looking Glass House!” Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, Purnell and Sons, 1975 A ridiculous courtroom trial ends the first book of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Justice and Words are weighed. In spite of the authority of the court and the rules of language and society, nothing makes any sense at all. Not just the order of things, but the meaning of things - as decided by authority- is playfully questioned. Alice’s adventures are as limitless as her imagination. In Lewis Carroll’s second book, Through The Looking Glass, The narrator tells us that Alice’s favourite phrase is “Let’s pretend”. Perhaps to pretend is merely a shift in perspective. Alice pretends the hard glass surface of the mantelpiece mirror is soft and misty. She steps through into a new world of marvellous adventures accompanied by more lessons and investigations concerning truth and perception.

Through the Looking Glass

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42 x 46 x 25cm Mixed media with antique scales

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Rumplestiltskin is a noisy dwarf who mysteriously comes to aid a miller’s daughter who has been caught up in her father’s boastful lies about her ability to spin straw into gold. Once he secures her promise to give him her firstborn, Rumplestiltskin saves the young woman from death and insures her marriage to the king by spinning three chambers of straw into gold. When he returns to collect her baby, she then dishonestly outwits the devilish imp by pretending to guess his name, thus breaking her bargain with the bone rattling little man. The curious name ‘Rumplestiltskin’ translates to ‘noise or rattling on stilts’ and sometimes refers to ghosts.

Rumplestiltskin

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36 x 31 x 19cm Rat skeleton, spinning wheel, straw, gold leaf, glass dome

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In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga is a scrawny old witch who lives in a strange hut hidden deep in the woods. Standing on chicken legs, her house twirls and stomps at will. Baba Yaga sleeps on top of the warm oven inside her little house. Outside, the bones of the unlucky visitors that she has eaten are on display. But for the few courageous guests who are pure of heart, she might serve a cup of blue rose petal tea and share some of her great wisdom.

Baba Yaga

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56 x 50 x 48cm Mixed media with chicken bones, sycamore stump, gold leaf, glass dome

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The fables of Aesop engage animal actors to convey lessons in human morals. His tales of the fox and the crow offer warnings about vanity. In one story, the fox flatters the crow, telling him to open his beak wide and sing his beautiful song; when truly the fox just wants the crow to drop the treat (a piece of cheese) that he wants for himself. In another fable, the fox is so keen to have some unattainable grapes that he tries to spoil them for the crow and urge him away from the grapevine by saying, “they are probably sour anyway!”

Fox and Crow

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35cm (diameter) x 60cmmixed media with crow, fox cub, grape leaves, glass dome

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In fairytales a path is often revealed or retraced with the aid of bread crumbs, rolling balls of string, or the flight of winged creatures…

Away Home

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21cm (diameter) x 17cmmixed media with compass, snakeskin, butterflies, glass dome

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1962 born in Tucson, Arizona

1979 -1988 San Francisco Ballet soloist and principal roles: La Sylphide, Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Cinderella, and works of Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Frederick Ashton, Arthur Mitchell, Jiri Kilian, Elisa Monte, Paul Taylor, William Forsythe, Kenneth Macmillan, Eric Bruhn, Michael Smuin, Lew Christensen, Helgi Thomasson. Touring Performances: US, Europe, Israel, South America, Singapore, Japan. US National TV Broadcasts: The Tempest (Smuin), Symphony In Three Movements (Gladstein), A Song For Dead Warriors (Smuin), Cinderella, (Christensen).

1988 -1989 San Francisco State University - Byzantine and Renaissance Art History exhibition curation and design

1989 -1992 San Francisco Art Institute - Drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture and installation, western art history, East Indian art history, biology

1990 Chinese calligraphy and painting tutorship with master Ren Ming

1995 -1996 Academie de Beaux Arts de Paris - Drawing and anatomy

Biography

1990 San Francisco Art Institute – etchings 1991 Blue Book Exhibition, Berkeley, California1993 Salon D’Automne, Paris, France 1996 Birmingham Royal Ballet – set design2001 American Museum in Bath – textiles2001 ‘MAX’ film set design, Budapest, Hungary2002 Art London, Duke of York’s HQ, London2002 Long & Ryle Gallery, London 2003 London Art Fair, Islington Design Centre2003 Mayor Gallery, London, collages2005 London Art Fair, Islington Design Centre2005 Long & Ryle Gallery, London 2009 ICA Gallery, London, group exhibition2010 Emporium Art, Chapel Arts, Bath 2012 LAPADA Fair, London2013 London Art, Fair, Islington Design Centre2013 Long & Ryle Gallery, London

Exhibitions

Photo credits Matt Lincoln, Pete Canning Print and Design Ex Why Zed 2013