For Colquhoun, surrealism and the occult provided two closely related paths to enlightenment. With a mystical belief in the wholeness of creation, she sought to transcend all divisions and achieve a state of union with the universe. This quest was carried out, in part, through an exploration of the nature and origin of gender differences and sexual relationships. In her work she scrutinised social and sexual roles in the human world, sexual dimorphism in the natural world and gender differences amongst the gods. She championed the feminine principle in all its aspects and was frequently scornful of male qualities. Someone who knew her well in the 1950s commented that the majority of her works ‘incorporated some form of phallic symbol’. (1) Whilst this is an oversimplification, phallic - and vulval – references are undoubtedly present in many of her art works and figure prominently in her poetry and prose.
Throughout her art and her occult researches, Colquhoun sought to enter and explore a consciousness beyond the personal, to transcend all divisions and to achieve a state of completion and wholeness with the universe. We find references to a complicated mixture of esoteric traditions that include hermaphrodite beings, the hermetic tradition of a gendered cosmos, a renegotiation of gender and sexual identities that takes place amongst humans and amongst the gods, and a reflection of developing contemporary occult ideas that dealt with matriarchy versus patriarchy and romantic ideas of woman’s closeness to nature. In part this represents a rejection of the traditional gender roles in art in which men looked at women. In part it was laying a claim to the unique biological and psychological aspects of women. The cycles of nature match the cycles of female physiology. The strength of women is to favour intuition over reason, the experiential over the experimental: it is both empowering and regenerative.
From the discovery of genital forms in the biological world of flowers and plants, in the natural world of rockpools, caves and rocky pillars, she recognised sex as the driving force of nature. Although her researches were situated amid twentieth century culture, informed and influenced by surrealism, she was also part of a tradition that can be traced back to the Neoplatonic idea of the World Soul, through the Anima Mundi of the mediaeval hermetic philosophers to Theosophy and the teachings of the Golden Dawn. Hers is, at heart, a pantheistic world view in which the divine, the human and the natural are all fused together in a unity that underlies its surface diversity.
Notes
1. Owen, P. Foreword to Goose of Hermogenes Peter Owen, London, 2003 (reprint). Unpaginated.
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