Wk8 – Artist Conversation – Rhiannon Aarons

Hecate, State I (50×27″ ) by Rhiannon Aarons

Rhiannon Aarons has always known she was going to be an artist.  At the age of 17 she tested out of high school early so that she could begin formally training as one.  Aarons has always been fascinated by strange things and anything that society overlooks.  She discovered Rebecca Chalker’s book, The Clitoral Truth, which discussed how modern understanding of the female anatomy is deeply flawed.  This sparked an interest in the history of the female anatomy for Aarons.  She began exploring the legend of Hecate, a greek goddess who has three heads.  While there are many different animals that are associated with Hecate’s head Aaron chose the snake, dog, and horse.  In the picture above you can see her interpretation using a anaconda, wolf, and horse skull.

She was able to create these print by using a technique call drypoint.  Aarons physically scratch the image of Hecate’s head into plexiglas.  With each print the quality of the print decreases.  She states that “the structure of the marks degrading serves as an allegory to a life cycle.”  Just like the print itself life moves on and we all fade into history like Hecate.

Serpent I (44×76″) by Rhiannon Aarons

The second part of Aarons’ gallery is serpents, which she uses previous drawings of the female anatomy from 1800’s anatomy and zoology books.  While serpents are supposedly gender neutral in mythology they are depicted femininely.  The anatomy parts were digitally overlay with the original images of a serpent.