THE DISAPPEARING WOMAN

Chinatown Soup is delighted to present The Disappearing Woman, an exhibition of paintings and poetry by artist-in-residence Lea Lumi’ere that is on view through April 17, 2022.

And now, a word from the artist:

I am drawn to the ethereal, mystical, and poetics of the ancient. My painting and collage work have strong thematic elements of the enigma of the woman, the beauty, the sorcery, the timeless quality of the womb, holding generations. As an artist, I like my work to be interpretative, allowing one experiencing the art to be pulled into a world that dangles between this world and the next, to give, perhaps, a taste of something untouchable, something that exceeds all genre of belief, but draws into the intuitive oneness of what we all desire—the beauty that is created from sorrow, the way that grief can become something transcendental, the way all the forces of the masculine energetics of the world can pull back to the divine feminine, the pregnancy of something brewing underneath every forest. 

The disappearing woman moves through the timeless feminine expression, the matriarchs inside our souls, the original mother who held us, before the world heaved back. It is about the mystery of our womanhood, the courage and boundless hope, the way we weave stories through our wombs, carry children and wells, through our own hunger and hindrance. It is also the dichotomy of consciousness itself—to give your form to the world requires a disappearing, a movement within the past, inside time, exiting the limbs and the form of this physical world. It is the expression of every expression: to be pregnant with thought and to give birth to it; to hide and to offer; to be alone and to join the universe in its aloneness. 

These works explore the nature of the womb experience, the way we disappear into each other when we move into love, the way the bride enters the threshold of war, the way we are ultimately prevalent and alone all at once—so heaving this signature on the world, so holding back. Exhibited paintings were made with acrylic paint and pastels and a bit of mixed media mixing paste. The colors used are those of the earth, of darkness, the hues of everything deep and heavy and hidden and beautiful.

To experience the art, perhaps it is required to enter a cave. To leave the premises of this world, to exist after all the thoughts that tether us and to simply feel. What is it to be weighted in an exile, a world that simultaneously holds so much grief and so much birth? To draw upon the feminine energy of the world, we must appear and disappear in one act: the act of life —the inhale and exhale—the death we encounter every time we choose to live.

Lea Lumi'ere is a visual artist and author. She has published four volumes of poetry, including Olive Rain, The End of the World Will Be Photographed, Salt & the Cinema, and The Dissappearring Woman. Her poems have also appeared in Visions International and Unvael Journal, among other publications. She is currently working on a historical fiction novel as well as an upcoming poetry collection alongside a new series of paintings, collage, and spoken word film. Lea’s art is informed by visceral elements of the subconscious, spirituality, and our intricate human experience.