Looking without Seeing
This is Kassandra (2024). She’s made with charcoal and acrylic paint on canvas, measuring 40 x 40 cm.
Cassandra was a daughter of Priam, the King of Troy. Struck by her beauty, Apollo provided her with the gift of prophecy—either on the condition that she agree to accept his romantic advances, or without prior agreement from Cassandra, depending on the source—but when Cassandra refused Apollo's romantic advances, he placed a curse on her, ensuring that nobody would believe her warnings. Cassandra was left with the knowledge of future events but could neither alter these events nor convince others of the validity of her predictions.
Cassandra metaphor (variously labeled the Cassandra syndrome, complex, phenomenon, predicament, dilemma, curse) relates to a person whose valid warnings or concerns are disbelieved by others.
In psychology, the Cassandra metaphor is applied by some psychologists to individuals who experience physical and emotional suffering as a result of distressing personal perceptions, and who are disbelieved when they attempt to share the cause of their suffering with others.
Addressing the metaphorical application of the Greek Cassandra myth, Jungian analyst Layton Schapira states that:
«What the Cassandra woman sees is something dark and painful that may not be apparent on the surface of things or that objective facts do not corroborate. She may envision a negative or unexpected outcome; or something which would be difficult to deal with; or a truth which others, especially authority figures, would not accept. In her frightened, ego-less state, the Cassandra woman may blurt out what she sees, perhaps with the unconscious hope that others might be able to make some sense of it. But to them her words sound meaningless, disconnected and blown out of all proportion.»
I think a lot of people can relate to the story of Kassandra these days. I know I can. But I don’t want to feel trapped in a role as a doomsday prophet by the people who are unwilling to face the truth. Because I don’t believe we are doomed. I believe we can do better.
After finishing Kassandra, and another painting (The Cecilias, which I'll write about later), I went back to my painting Anais. I realized I wasn’t finished with her.
Just like Kassandra, Anais has a river of words, thoughts and feelings, and they are pouring out of her. I originally made just one bird with the scraps from my old diary, to illustrate the lightness I can feel when I understand something. I realized it wasn’t enough, and it was a little too tidy. The real process is much more out of (my) control, like a river, so I made one flowing out of her. The snake is a reference of course to the snake in the garden of Eden. I’ve wondered many times how detrimental this labeling of women’s true sight of the world as something brought on by the devil, has been for us. The realities we see in our existence not only made irrelevant, but a product of evil manipulation. A lie.
The snakes in my paintings always symbolize transformation, wisdom, the cycle of life and death, and rebirth. Yes, I think they are a little scary in real life, but they are also powerful, strong, and they might hurt you. And I’ve never met a wise person who isn't like that as well. They might intimidate you, but it’s also ok to feel a little inferior for a minute you know, as long as you don’t let that silence you. Allow it to humble you, and move on a little wiser.
Wisdom (noun) is the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight ; the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments.
I remember hearing once in a movie I think, someone saying that while people might admire and want the wise person, they will reject the experiences that person had to go through to become wise, and that really stuck with me.
The eyes symbolizes the presence of someone who is watching in silence; sometimes silent, sometimes silenced. I started to paint them years ago, because I was angry. I was so angry and fed up by the dynamics of the relationships I had, where I repeatedly centered emotionally immature men in my life, and let their needs become more important than my own. I don’t necessarily interpret that as something done with bad intentions (except that one guy, jeezes… story for another day), but I was just fed up by their inability to see me. The first painting I ever made on canvas is the one below, It’s not me, it’s you (2020), where I was painting how I felt about being in relationships. Like I was trapped, and everything I was and could be were limited by the framework provided by men, who at the same time demanded of me to make them happy and feel better about themselves.
In the painting, the man is almost everywhere, making it almost impossible for the woman to avoid seeing him. She’s closed her eyes to find her calm, so that she can resolve the situation, and please the man, even if it is draining her. She is tired of having to mother the man, but the man is suicidal (true story), and she can’t not try to help him. And he’s shouting at her, because whatever she is doing it’s not enough, he’s still not feeling better.
The painting above, Uglyboys (2020), is about that same feeling. I worked with this guy once, who had a lot of emotions. Working as therapists, emotions are information, if you know how to read them. I got quite good at that. But this co-worker, was completely un-regulated. He just had lots of strong emotions, that he would show. And I think he believed that he was doing what I was doing, but he wasn’t. Because when I would share with my colleagues the emotional material that I was experiencing while working with the person I was trying to help, he would always make it about me, and my feelings, in stead of hearing what was being described by me about what occurred within a specific situation between me and another. If I said that I had felt fear, or sadness, he would try and comfort me and tell me how strong I was or some other bullshit, because then he could be the big strong man who was “helping” poor little me. He just couldn’t understand that I didn’t tell them these things for him and my colleagues to console me, I told them this because it was information for them to work with.
People would be so impressed by this man displaying his emotions, that they seemed blind to the fact that they were unchecked, and they had started to permeate the fabric of the therapeutic institution I worked in. When I finally had enough, and started to check him on his immaturity, I was the bad guy, because I hurt his feeeeeelings when I said I didn’t want his “help”, or told him that his “jokes” were inappropriate. Funny how that works. His inferiority complex was stinking up the place, but instead of demanding more of him, it was expected that I become less of me to not upset him.
Above is a painting made on paper from January 2020, I think this might be the first time I painted the eyes. This was when I was just painting, every single day, as a way to try and express all the things that I hadn’t been able to say after I was burnt out from my work and my personal relationships that were imploding in the most spectacular and terrible ways, one after the other. Things I’m only now beginning to be able to put into words. There was just so much fucking drama everywhere I turned.
Inattentional blindness or perceptual blindness occurs when an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight, purely as a result of a lack of attention rather than any vision defects or deficits. (…) The term was chosen by Arien Mack and Irvin Rock in 1992 and was used as the title of their book of the same name (…) in which they describe the discovery of the phenomenon and include a collection of procedures used in describing it. A famous study that demonstrated inattentional blindness asked participants whether or not they noticed a person in a gorilla costume walking through the scene of a visual task they had been given.
In almost all relationships with men, I’ve ended up feeling like that sucker in the gorilla suit, which is probably why I’ve just given up on the idea of having a romantic one, and been on my own for six years now. It’s not because I don’t want one.
I just want to be seen, you know?