Luminous Bodies
is a work of mourning and an exploration of the spiritual and historical
forces that continuously vie to originate and then heal the rift between
the body and the soul.
Inspired by many religious traditions of mourning, from The Tibetan
Book of the Dead to Native American mourning rituals, the series of
drawings is, in actuality, a spiritual journey begun by the artist a few
days after the death of a loved one. The journey is narrated in drawings
and in epigrammatic prose poetry inscribed within the images. There is a
strong “documentary” aspect to the work, which attempts to record
faithfully the actual process of loss and resurrection of the lover.
Memory is revealed to be so much more than mere remembrance. For as the
artist recollects the love affair, she re-creates the lover. Memory
becomes the sense that gives us access to the existence of a spiritual
reality and leads us to the place where the spirit lives, even when the
body has disappeared. Though grief propels the imagery forward, the
sense of retrieving love and creating love beyond the grip of death
infuses these drawings with a luminous joy. In one image the artist
writes: “Those that one loves in one’s heart and soul/will always
accompany one."
The Spirit and Body are one. The physical world contains the juice of
the fruit. When the skin of the fruit is peeled off, we drink in each
other’s souls. In a further nudity. Always striving for a further
unpeeling of the mask. Sometimes I think I might have saved you from
death.
Inspired by William Blake’s visual and poetic works, Melinda Camber
Porter’s Luminous Bodies series celebrates desire and give
trust to the intuitions of the senses. The series creates a world where,
paradoxically, clear-sightedness seems to arise only from intense
passion.
As the journey taken in Luminous Bodies progresses, the
notion of the sacred springs from the image of the human body and as
such shares with much Indian art (and particularly Tantric art) the
belief that the erotic can be the pathway to enlightenment. In
Luminous Bodies, as in Tantric art, the human body is seen as a
microcosm for the cosmos, and human narrative and emotion take center
stage.
The Luminous Bodies series comprises more than 90 works
on paper, varying from 9-1/2 by 11 inches to 6-1/2 by 9 inches.
The Luminous Bodies exhibition comprises 40 works on paper
selected from the total series.
•
a solo exhibition of
Luminous Bodies commences at Oxford University on November 2nd
2004
•
Luminous Bodies are the basis of the short documentary
Luminous Journey
Leo Castelli's praise for the Luminous
Bodies series
"The bold, uncompromising originality of Melinda Camber Porter's
imagery in the Luminous Bodies series, her exquisite feel for
color, her reflective lyrical brushstrokes and translucent washes,
reveal her to be a master of both watercolor and pen and ink as well as
oil on canvas.
"Few artists have the rigorously philosophical instincts that drive
Camber Porter's writings and paintings. In her new series, she seems to
reconstruct our image of ecstasy by chipping away, with the movements of
her brush, at the boundary dividing the body and the soul. Her searing,
precise strokes have an urgency to them, as if she is merely a witness
on the scene of a magnificent, unfolding vision that she has been
privileged to receive. And it is certain that the Luminous Bodies
series is the work of a visionary artist and post, for Camber Porter's
incandescent washes dissolve away the world of appearances to reveal a
deeper reality where the body is as luminous as the soul."
–Leo Castelli
