Fantastic Journeys - Paintings and Music
Come see Dragons! Wizards and magic! Underground labyrinths, enchanted islands, and overall, the Yin and Yang of Light and Darkness.
Come see Dragons! Wizards and magic! Underground labyrinths, enchanted islands, and overall, the Yin and Yang of Light and Darkness.
Reading American fantasy and science fiction author Ursula Le Guin’s “Earthsea” novels on a summer holiday on the South Island a few years ago, Featherston artist Astrid Nielsch was overwhelmed by a rush of images inspired by the author’s strong imagery. In December 2008 she began to work on the series of paintings which form the backbone of this exhibition.
Set in a waterbound world of islands and wizards traveling in boats, the fictional world of “Earthsea“ is much inspired by the cultures of the American Pacific Coast, and the Pacific Islands. Incidentally, in some languages “Earthsea” translates to the same word as “Zealand”!
Profoundly influenced by the Chinese philosophy of Daoism and the I Ging, Le Guin’s work turns many of the common fantasy stereotypes on their head. Her stories may be all about wizards and magic and dragons, but they contain a deep psychological and spiritual truth.
Not content with expressing her admiration for the author in one artistic medium only, Astrid has written a piece of music or two in reaction to Le Guin’s texts. Her new work “Only in Silence” will premiere at the gallery opening on 17 August. She will be performing her new pieces and improvisations, and repertory from her 2008 “Travels in Middle-earth” CD, throughout the week.
Prints of the artwork and CDs will be for sale during the exhibition.
"Fantastic Journeys - paintings and music" at Thistle Hall in Wellington, from 17-22 August.
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Astrid Nielsch has been trying to make sense of the world around her by painting pictures since she was two years old. Reading the works of J.R.R. Tolkien as a teenager inspired her to create her own body of fantasy illustrations, first in watercolours, later in oils. Stories, myths and songs have always been her main source of inspiration.
The imaginary universe of Middle-earth also inspired her to pick up the harp, and embark on a career as a professional musician that has taken her across the globe, and ultimately to New Zealand. As “Asni the Harper” she has produced two solo CDs. Her latest album “Travels in Middle-earth” was released in 2008, to international acclaim.
The intense visual experience of the New Zealand landscape and light compelled her to take painting more seriously again. Astrid is largely self taught, but since 2004 she has been participating in several online art communities, where she found the peer support that has enabled her to develop her painterly skills more systematically, and where she was encouraged to explore the connections between the fine motor skills she had acquired as a musician, and the art of the pencil and brush.
In 2008, Astrid completed the Diploma of Multimedia at Natcoll Design College, and decided to give up her live performing career, in order to concentrate on her painting, and her newly acquired skills in professional web and multimedia design.
In 2009, she was awarded an Enterprise Allowance Grant to set up her own business, Asni: Multimedia Art & Design. She runs her own website www.asni.net, where she sells prints of her artwork, sheet music and CDs, and designs websites for other artists and musicians, independent professionals, and small businesses in New Zealand and abroad. “Fantastic Journeys” is Astrid’s first solo exhibition.
Ursula K Le Guin, the Grande Dame of American fantasy and science fiction, was born in 1929 in Berkeley, California. Her father, German anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, is known for his work on the indigenous cultures of California. Her mother, Theodora Kroeber, was a successful writer. Growing up in this academic and artistic environment, she discovered her love for writing early.
But it would take until the 1960’s to publish her first science fiction novel. Her work soon began to attract major awards: her fifth novel, “The Left Hand of Darkness”, published a year after the first “Earthsea” book, won both the Nebula and Hugo awards, and can be considered a 20th century classic.
Social anthropology, feminism, ecology, xenophobia and racial discrimination are constant concerns in Le Guin’s work. The “Earthsea” novels break with a long tradition of eurocentric fantasy writing, in that their hero and most of the other characters are a dark skinned people, their culture inspired by American First Nations as much as Europe, living in a water-bound world of scattered islands reminiscent of the Pacific.
The author lives in Portland, Oregon. Her latest book, “Lavinia”, appeared in 2008.
“Earthsea” synopsis
The Wizard of Earthsea: the young wizard Ged, a strong but unschooled talent, is taken on as apprentice by the wise old Mage Ogion. Noting his impatience, Ogion sends Ged to the wizard school on Roke Island. By an act of competitive ambition, Ged releases a shadow into the world, whom he will eventually have to hunt down and face.
The Tombs of Atuan is set largely in an underground labyrinth consecrated to the Dark Powers of the Earth. Tenar, the young High Priestess of the Tombs, is torn between her sacred duty to kill the trespasser Ged, and her curiosity about the outside world, and about this man and stranger.
The Farthest Shore: an older and wiser Ged embarks on a quest to find and fix the hole were magic is leaking out of the world, leaving wizards without their spells and singers without their songs. He is accompanied by young Lebannen, who has to fulfill a prophecy so that a king will return to rule in peace in Earthsea.