Unknown familiar story of us: personal mythologies

This research investigates the means of drawing personal narratives through visual symbols. In this, I position myself as both subject matter and medium to engage with various realms of reality. The resulting autobiographical narratives deal with feelings of insecurity in my place of existence. Based on this insecurity, I develop the concept of the ‘unknown familiar’ as a methodology to explore individual sensitivities within a collective unconscious. The ‘unknown familiar’ draws on Freud's uncanny and Jung’s theory of archetypes to describe that unfamiliar and ambiguous feeling that occurs in the gap between personal metaphors and archetypal symbols. Supporting the development of this framework in my own practice, I examine the production of personal narratives through symbols and metaphors by prominent artists such as Beuys, Bourgeois, Bosch and Smith. These are studied from psychological, cultural and mythological perspectives.Creating images is used as an active and organic process of investigating my own thoughts and emotions. In my practice I search for images that underlie my conscious and subconscious, and operate through dreams, memories and everyday life. Through these, my inter-disciplinary studio practice visualises the intangible sense of my own presence. My psychological motivation is to overcome the insecurity of uncertainty, and based on this I explore otherness and the absurd through personal symbolism