THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE ASCENDING FEMININE: Megan Jaster and Zära Monet | Curated by Mela M

CURATOR’S STATEMENT

The metamorphosis and generative power of the ascending feminine is initiated and propelled forward by several fundamental dynamics. One of these is ethereal resonance which represents the creative imagination’s synchronous alignment with the feminine principle. Another is intuitional coherence which spotlights the essential integrity of the consistent correspondence between the creative imagination and its feminine aspect. These formidable dynamics are critical components necessary for engineering a metamorphic transformation from a less evolved form to one more highly evolved, from a mundane representation to a higher vibrational structural frequency that changes conscious perceptions. This can open portals of experience that travel beyond the limiting reductionistic and material constraints of spacetime ontology The reciprocal interplay between these dynamics generate a greater magnitude of potential transformation that is ultimately required for igniting the creative imagination to fuel, push and amplify a bold feminine ascension into new worlds of perceptual brilliance and, hence, providing a fertile ground of being for new art.

The works presented in this exhibit by Zära Monet and Megan Jaster offer the observer a rare opportunity to experience subtle changes in perception. The apperception of these oil paintings escapes the filters of traditional analytical and linear systems, allowing more direct access to the deeper structures of feeling wherein reside the non-linearity and non-locality of the intuitive feminine dimension. Monet references her use of “obscured perspectives and subtle shifts of color saturation and temperature “to make viewing her work more “nuanced and introspective”. She promotes her work as challenging “the generic way a painting is received” by skewing the locus of composition or reversing light logic often in an old master style and as wanting her paintings to “reify a psychological and reflexive viewing experience that ultimately transcends the viewer into an unknown consciousness”. In Jaster’s work, she uses light and color to permeate her paintings with a quality or feeling of “otherworldliness and a reverence for the spiritual”. In her works, she creates unorthodox dreamlike vignettes and biomorphic forms through traditional and innovative painting techniques inspired by a lifelong influence and exploration of the connection between nature and humanity. Both artists are committed to guiding and captivating as well as challenging and, ultimately, inspiring the viewer’s imagination to explore, perhaps even embrace, their own metamorphosis and ascension to heretofore unknown higher planes of consciousness.

As these works engage the viewers mind to generate new perceptions, they also transmit and reflect a robust sense of the artist’s intentional meanings, both dramatically and inevitably, consciously and unconsciously, in the inescapable historical and contemporary social contexts that influences and informs their works. Monet points out that “understanding the varying psychological aspects of the feminine is crucial in allowing us to understand the ways in which society and women interact”. Jaster reveals some early experiences of self-discovery through the “pendulum swings between the world of nature and man “. Consequently, these influences can affect thinking and, hence, modify beliefs. Such nuanced modifications over time can, if properly understood, lead to the arrest of stale patterns of perception and cause the surrender of reason and the need for certainty to yield to the power of illusions and subliminal messages so evident in their works.

Clearly, the theme in this exhibit of the feminine in the state of metamorphosis speaks with great relevance to the spirit of our times, and the need for new and exciting transformative experiences and thinking. So propelled by the momentum of its own ascension, this amplified feminine dynamic gives rise to an abundance of new creative ideas that aspire to a higher personal, social and greater spiritual awareness as alluded to by Monet’s mention of “problematic, stereotypical, gender roles “and Jaster’s comment concerning “a reverence for the spiritual”. Indeed, this kind of expanded awareness can reprocess habitual patterns of perceiving and acting in the world. The ascending feminine embodies the governing law of evolution, that motion is manifest in everything and that nothing is at rest in the universe. This vibratory motion is not only seen in all matter and energy but in all forms of life and in all forms of art. It is, in fact, life itself, forever evolving, forever changing as its existential trajectory forever exemplifies humanity’s destiny to explore otherworldly dimensions as well as other worlds in our vast universe.  Mela M - June 2023