Acrylic on panel and soap stone sculpture with charcoal and epoxy resin
2021
The artworks I completed for VCE Studio arts unit 3 + 4 are perhaps my most conceptually ambitious works yet. The idea of spending a whole year to develop two artworks was daunting, and almost seemed like too much time. However, despite the constant work this year, it still didn’t feel like enough time.
Partway through the year, I had reached a fork in the road. I had developed 14 different ideas for potential artworks. I only had time to make two of them. the rational side of my brain noted that I could always do the other twelve artworks after school finishes, but the irrational side of my brain wanted to do all of them, all at once. Obviously, doing 14 artworks in the space of (roughly) 10 weeks just isn’t feasible. And so, the two artworks I channeled my enthusiasm into ended up being Leave Him, Sigyn and Romans in the Sky.
Here, I shall discuss Leave Him, Sigyn. This artwork comprises of two parts:
1. an acrylic on panel depicting a scene from Norse mythology, and
2. a sculpture depicting the bowl the central figure, Sigyn, holds within the painting.
The myth that inspired this project was about Loki, the god of mischief, and his punishment for his involvement with the death of Baldur. For a nice synopsis for this myth, read here.
The more I researched this myth, the more I thought about Sigyn. As Loki’s wife, she’s depicted as the complete opposite of her husband – loyal, caring, protective. But even though she is by every social standard an exceptional wife, she still finds herself in a punishment of her own. Why? Was it because she loved the wrong person? No, No. When you’re with someone like Loki, it’s never about the you. What happened to Sigyn was merely collateral damage, and the world forgot about her. Barely any information about Sigyn has survived the tests of time. I only learnt who she was through my research on Loki. Every mention of her is in passing when talking about Loki. I decided to switch this up, making the main subject matter in this artwork Sigyn, giving her a what voice I can in this modern age. Its hard to characterize Sigyn other than a stereotype, considering what little we know about her. That’s why I decided to paint her from behind, creating a sense of anonymity.
The bowl has younger futhark runes carved into it’s interior, and some elder futhark runes carved into the exterior. The line within the interior translates to “remember me, I remember you; Love me, I love you”. This was a love poem written into a rúnakefli (a kind of flat wooden stick that served as a notebook or a letter) from around 1198 CE. I found this through my research into norse runes for this artwork and thought that it’s innocence and sincerity was a nice way to represent Sigyn’s love towards Loki. The sigil in the bottom of the bowl translates to “I will endure my fate to protect Loki”.
The title of the piece encourages Sigyn to take back her life. The fact that the physical bowl is in front of the audience suggests that Sigyn comes to this realization herself, ditching it and Loki in the hopes to find something better.
