Goth Style Secrets Blog - Gothic Style and Gothic Art

The concept of “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb” is influenced by my interest in three genres: naïve ‘outsider art’ (sometimes called ‘folk art’) paintings, European Gothic literature, as it pertains to ‘High Art‘ and the contemporary Asian performance art of ‘cosplay’ (costume play), as ‘Theatre of the Absurd‘.

My March 2009 portrait, by Emily Carr art student, Miles de Courcy combines my interest in various aspects of cross-cultural historic European painting and literature, together with a postmodern Asian performance art genre. In this artist statement, each one of these themes is elaborated upon in order to explore my desire to create this enigmatic and hybrid art form, which spans from taking elements from the eleventh century to the present day and into what I see as ‘the formlessness of the fourth dimension’ of time and space.

This 2009 series represents the culmination of my background and studies. I was born and raised in the historic Quebec City, where Catholicism played a large part, not only in the religious life, but also in the secular life of its citizens. During my formative years, my mother went to the Convent for English and French classes, while various Catholic Sisters, refugees of the traumatic Cultural Revolution in China who resettled in Quebec City, taught me the parables from the Bible. In 1980, when I was a child, I moved out to Vancouver with my family. We moved, in part, because of the potentially violent ethnic conflict engendered by ‘The First Quebec Referendum’. My family felt more at risk, because we were visible minorities. This language conflict (and hence, the uneasiness about ethnicity) still continues to exist in Quebec City today.

‘Gothic Horror’ in Art

Gothic Art is a medieval art movement, which emerged when Europe transitioned from the ‘Dark Ages’ to the ‘Middle Ages.’ My BA is in English Literature from the University of British Columbia, with a focus in Nineteenth Century Gothic and studies of Albert Camus’ existentialist writings. Therefore, Gothic literature has always been a major influence in my art practice.

The portrayal of religious stories occupies a prime place in Gothic Art. For example, traditional Christian sculptures and paintings in cathedrals visually represent various aspects from the Old and the New Testament of the Bible, including the depiction of the Virgin Mary, the iconic Catholic representation of the Mother of God. The image of the ‘Madonna’ is placed among the clear crystal rosaries worn by “Lady Eureka” to symbolize her virtue in the midst of darkness.

Later in Europe (eighteenth and Nineteenth century Gothic Revival), Gothic literature or Gothic horror emerged to combine the elements of both horror and romance, which began with the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel, ‘The Castle of Otranto’. The effect of this Gothic fiction depends on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romanticism, which includes melodrama and parody. I use similar techniques to obtain a sense of suspense, symbolized by the use of the hand-crafted English “dragon throne” prop and Japanese origami pleated and embroidered lace, designed by contemporary Japanese couture fashion designer Issey Miyake, as a backdrop drapery for the “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb” series of images.

Romanticism is the revolt against the scientific rationalization of nature and is expressed through both the figurative and narrative aspects of “Lady Eureka” in the “meditative brooding on what is dearest to the heart” (“Yoga Sutras”, Book I, Sutra 39), representing the pure love of the artist for her art. The purity of this ‘love’ is reflected between “Lady Eureka” and her pet, “Lion-Lamb” also in the pictures – held in her lap or posing by her feet.

Naïve ‘Peaceable Kingdom’

“And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6)

The innocence of “Lion-Lamb” is a direct reference to Edward Hicks (1780-1849), a colonial folk or naïve artist. Although he was self-taught, he developed a sophisticated technical ability and presented a penetrating intellect in his 61 paintings of the ‘Peaceable Kingdom’, where animals live together in peace and humanity is transformed by the grace of Christ, to be as gentle and tractable as a child.

I first became interested in painting in 1997 from studying the naïve outsider art or folk art movement, which was only just becoming well-theorised at that time, in juxtaposition to modernism and postmodernism. This led to my visits to the Folk Art Museum in Berkeley, California and to the annual Outsider Art Fair in New York. These research visits inspired me to include elements of primitivism in my own paintings over a span of 12 years: see my “Soul Journey”, “Vision Quest” and Ascension” series. Since that time, outsider art has been shown to have a very complex history, with various sub-categories, across the world.

Meanwhile, the seductive gaze of “Lady Eureka” alludes to yet another naïve artist, Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) in his most successful work, “The Dream” (1910) which he describes as:

“A nude woman sleeping on a sofa who dreams that she is transported into the middle of the forest, while hearing the charmer’s pipe”. (Rousseau)

Rousseau was a French post-impressionist painter in the naïve manner, where his best-known paintings depicted jungle scenes. As a self-taught painter (as my main interest was literature), I can relate to Rousseau who was at first ridiculed, but came to be recognized as a self-taught genius whose works were later considered of high artistic quality.

BACKGROUND: The Art of ‘Cosplay’

In 2005, I discovered cosplay (”costume play”). Cosplay is an Asian performance art, with artistically elaborate costumes and accessories for characters sourced from various Japanese and East Asian media, including ‘manga’, ‘anime’, ‘tokusatsu’, comic books, J-pop, J-rock, Visual Kei, novels and cyberspace. At that time, I was also introduced to the “Yoga Sutras” from Pantanjali, which is the origin of all yogas (yoga means “union”) – so the same hand gestures in “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb” is Christian (“prayer”) and Eastern (“reverse prayer pose”).

The clothing and makeup of “Lady Eureka” is developed from a particular sub-genre form of cosplay: Gothic Lolita (GL) style, which originated in Japan with widespread appeal in Asia to emphasize girlishness and Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL), the ‘mature’ version that combines the elegance of the Romantic and Victorian periods and the darkness of Gothic horror and the cuteness of Nabokov’s Lolita. “Lolita”, the novel is narrated by Humbert Humbert, a literary scholar, who is obsessed with “nymphets” and falls in love with a sexually precocious 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze. Ironically, in the actual sub-cultures of Asia, girls and women dress up in GL and EGL ‘cosplay’ attire to signify their desire to be innocent and ladylike.

Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL) and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat (EGA) Style

Mana of the Visual Kei band, ‘Malice Mizer’ (Japan) wore Goth Lolita clothing in their performances, helped spread the awareness of the fashion. In 1999, Mana created his own couture-quality label, ‘moi-même-moitié’, a portmanteau of the French words “moi-même” (myself) and “moitié” (half). Mana coined his designs as Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL) and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat (EGA), the androgynous version of EGL.

The basic EGL look as represented in the “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb” series is usually black clothing, a petticoat or crinoline underskirt to create the desired bell-shaped silhouette, under a basic circle skirt, pale makeup, darker shades of red lipstick and black eyeliner for an innocent and doll-like appearance from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Also, many GL and EGL ‘cosplayers’ carry stuffed animals or small pets, such as lap dogs with them; hence the inclusion of the “Lion-Lamb”, a beloved and docile pet Pomeranian.

Ironically, GL, EGL and EGA originally borrowed from the West, with elements of Victorian, Rococo and Baroque styles, but this form of ‘cosplay’ is now spreading to the West. Fashion recycles not only from history, but cross-culturally as well. And it is through the Theatre of the Absurd (‘Myth of Sysiphus’ by Camus), that “Lady Eureka and the Lion-Lamb” unites Bible stories, European Gothic literature and the art of ‘cosplay’ from Asia – to create a rich and poignant narrative within the series that is both allegorical and autobiographical in nature.

It is my hope that by combining the elements of the past and present, the West and the East, that the viewer shall see the unity of diverse cultures. It has been my personal mission to bring to Canada’s West Coast, a greater awareness of the ‘cosplay’ art practice of Asia. Cosplay is actually European in origin and elements that people consider ‘dark’ today were not in previous centuries. For example, the “immodesty” of lace undergarments were nothing-of-the-sort, but were formerly worn by the artistocrats and the Clergy! The EGL elements of style (pale complexion, corsets, lace and capes) were formerly revered by European high society from before the 20th century. It is my re-remembering of my personal and collective past together with the ‘politics of cultural identity and trauma’ that I have used in my hybrid contemporary art of today.