"Wandering Wild" Series
Wandering Wild is a visual series exploring somatic states, emotional movement, and sacred softness through spiraling feminine forms. Each piece began as a gesture that unfolds into figures that unravel and merge with the cosmic spaces surrounding them. The figures represent a stoic moving consciousness that is one with the natural world and fully accepting of what is. Originally inspired by the myth of year-walking from Nordic traditions and my own experiences with the forest as a place of refuge, the work imagines a wild interior world where healing comes not from fixing, but from feeling and being one with the surrounding world.Drawing these figures became a way to map the body’s quiet storms—the way emotion sticks and releases, the way we spiral through growth. I let the drawings lead, layering line and texture until they became more energy than anatomy.This series is not about answers. It’s about movement and holding space for what words often can’t: the felt sense of being alive.
"Meandering" Series
“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.” -Alan WattsAfter a year in deep meditation, I began visiting a void beyond mindfulness itself. It was a hole of nothingness consisting of everything and nothing all at once. The scape and the self rippled into one, and I realized the truth that to live was to meander. In this series, paperclay is sculpted to revitalize old, abandoned objects and renew them into awakening, shedding the light on our true inner spirit. Gestural sculptural applications convey the pulsating underlying waves of collective unconsciousness. Intensive graphite surface textures depict our physical reality beginning to break free from constraint. Trusting intuition through stream of consciousness work styles, drawings are coaxed out of the sculptural forms, unplanned and taking on a life of their own. At the heart of the series, the ephemeral figures are enjoying the moment and breaking free of all barriers by dancing and unifying into the scapes.
"Mindlessness" Series
“Some people think a great deal too much. Of that I am sure.” Mary Poppins, by P.L. TraversMindfulness and being in the present moment has become all the rage. The term itself, however, implies the mind being full, and the practice is sometimes hijacked as yet another way to become better, more useful or productive as human beings. My work peels back the layers to reveal the truth that what we refer to as mindful might instead be mindless. In the absence of the mind we may stop containing ourselves or others into psychological boxes of what we should be and instead begin trusting our intuition to find what we are actually searching for which is already present around us.The work is inspired by the philosophical writings of both Alan Watts and Albert Camus. The work of Watts synthesized the teachings of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism with the principles of western psychology to further understand the true oneness and interconnectedness of all. Camus developed the philosophy of absurdism based upon human beings existing in a purposeless, chaotic universe that is ridiculous and absurd. These two contrasting yet harmonizing philosophies come together visually within my work. Life is both completely tragic and completely beautiful. On this earth we are as fragile and delicate as the papers dolls in my work. Everything is ephemeral, and we are here to use this time in our meatsuits as we please. In this journey I aim simply towards mindlessness, and I will draw, play, sing, dance and find true connections with others in the short time I have here.
"The Cabinet of Soft Revolt" Series
Somewhere between theater and a dream, The Cabinet of Soft Revolt unfolds like a stage set left glowing after the curtain falls. Here, myth-women intermix with absurdist characters in worlds that shimmer with nostalgia. These works take on elements of the surreal, slipping out of history’s frame. Through digital ink work and layered vintage textures and photography, I re-imagine feminine archetypes not as performers for an audience, but as secret keepers of utmost fantastical fun and play.
Figurative & Life Drawing Studies
© Jill Yanik Eisert All rights reserved.