Linked to tradition and confounded by representation, this feminine object of desire paraded through the imagination of western thought, reigning deeply from the niches of western art. The inability to depict female sexuality, except as a deep mystery perplexed by the bloody rhythms of child birth, yet cleverly hidden from truth lends credence to objectification. This symbolic measure of control remains dominated by the male gaze, ensnared by religion, and adjudicated by masked inquisitors with the power to censor all contradictory examples. The sexual ‘object’ can be manipulated and controlled, hidden from view and distorted.
Mother, virgin, and child become divine desexualized objects of worship, as if to become sterilized and purged from the chaotic ‘filth’ that clouds the natural world. Fear of overwhelming chaos demands eradication. Mankind transforms nature into a safe haven for male spirituality wrapped in the guise of maternal comfort, whereas the actual feminine spirit may have little if any need once the biological cycle has passed.
At the heart of such representation the illusion of power and dominance persists. This denial of womanhood can be viewed a defilement of nature, expressed over and over through the ravages of mankind; the systematic rape of the environment on an industrial as well as a global scale.
Orgiastic pagan rituals of the imagination draw us closer to the eternal flame of truth far beyond mankind’s impotent attempts to control. Nature kills indiscriminately. Yet this inherent characteristic remains effectively denied everywhere around us. Post modern digital pop revelry transforms nature into an abomination, carefully manipulated, a mere shallow construct at the heart of a deception created to stimulate profit driven automatons.
Steeped in the violence of men, violence reigns supreme in the realm of imagined control…challenged, and effectively quelled if no such attention is ever given. Ms. Sandoval negates untruth with a symbolic whisper, a caress of the feminine form invariably expressed in communion with nature. She proclaims exclusion as well as participation with the image of womanhood gracefully walking on water. She shares the impact of feminine power in its own right, dwarfed by the power nature can hurl at us at a moments notice. Other images contort, pulling forth power that fuels the feminine being; free of contradiction, conflict, control, and the currents of masculine violence.
These powerfully adroit images emerge from a psychic view of nature that defines the holistic completeness of feminine being, never isolated or distorted by fearful measures of control; poised female nudes that proclaim reverence and participation in a natural realm far beyond the confines of symbolic repression. Governed by this holistic right of passage Almendra Sandoval’s divine aspirations forever cloud the pantheons of expression dominated by rules, rigidity, and repression.
Featured Artist Almendra Sandoval
The Inscrutable Feminine Discourse of Almendra Sandoval
