Series:
BIG SKY, LION
To disappear is also to know you exist.
Provided there is recovery, removal is
an awareness of location. Animals and solitary beings entered into Joanna's paintings. There was often a low and steady horizon, few ornaments, and a vivid circle near the center of the sky.
In "Lion's Bride", two lions of unusual strength and reserve face each other, heads toward a partial eclipse. It is a blue evening, more night than day, although all is visible. The lions are the color of a strong black marble, each directly under a jagged cloud. The lead male is under the darker cloud, his mane crazed in the evening's dark blue. Near him lies a prone female nude, The lion is posed in protection toward her, a kind of benevolent power; she indicates comfort and security
Form and color are transmuting energy, which flows to the second lion, a more receptive being that looks knowledgeably back to the heavens. Power is balanced
and generative.
In another work from the same period "Moon Cradle"a lion stands over a clothed woman. The lion's head is turned so that it is difficult to tell whether it is male or female, but the four square paws give certainty to its power. The woman is relaxed, and her hair falls back from her head. A yellow scarf lightens the picture's weight--black lion, black crescent in the sky--but also severs her head. Often when men view this picture they think the lion has killed the woman; women see the lion protecting her while she rests.
Quentin Hardy
JOANNA SALSKA
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Gallery
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Lions click to enlarge |
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