From: Melissa Sarat <inverleith@earthlink.net>
www.inverleith.com

My raucous painted stories are thick with baroque imagery and intense color, with roots in rambling Southern story-telling traditions. Myths and archetypes emanate from my native Louisiana and living and traveling abroad. My quirky humor, mystical spirituality, fascination for minute detail in nature and a life of nurturing family, friends, community and garden appear in painted flora, fruit, fetuses, food, animals, vegetables, fish, cakes, frogs, birds, insects, people, planets and fire.

Even costumes, glassware, china, books, paper and fabrics tell elaborate stories of life, death, re-birth, agony and epiphany.

Archetypes have always emerged through the work of artists who teach, comfort, warn, encourage and heal us. In ever changing costumes, archetypes appear precisely when they are needed.

In these paintings, they warn us of catastrophic environmental disasters, display the cornucopia of gifts in the universe and teach us about the connectedness of all things as well as the importance of bio-diversity. Through these archetypes, we become our sisters' and brothers' keepers and learn about divine love, wisdom, hope and the profound sacredness of all life.

 

Father God, Momma and the Holy Spirit ~ 7'x 9'

Detail 1 ~ Father God, Momma and the Holy Spirit

Detail 2 ~ Father God, Momma and the Holy Spirit

Detail ~ Pentecost ~ 5' x 7'

Momma, Evangeline and the Holy Spirit ~ 4' x 5'




Detail ~ Momma, Evangeline and the Holy Spirit




Guardians and Frogs ~ 4'x 5'




Detail ~ Guardians and Frogs




Detail with Crawfish Cake ~ Gay Kingsley's World ~ 5' x 8'