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IN A LABYRINTH

Christina Cordero: Codex Bondicus, 1994, 4x6.7cm, etching and chine collee, 2

plates, edition 1 O+ 1 A/P (Winner Grand Prize, International Miniature Art Biennial,

1994, Quebec, Canada). This piece has been

influenced by the enigma of secret codes and

ancient scripts, the beauty of old hieroglyphics

and the present phenomena of 'word-painting' on the walls of our modern cities, combined with a sense of timelessness.

OF DRE A MS In May this year, Christina Cordero was awarded the Grand Prize at the

International Miniature Art Biennial in Quebec, Canada, for her painting Codex Bondicus.

Christina Cordero' s images seep into one's consciousness like submerged memories. Her powerful, lyrical illustrations strrke an emotional chord with the viewer, whilst remaining intentionally elusive and enigmatic. Her paintings are complex, surreal, emotional landscapes.

In all her images, she builds up textures slowly, using layer upon layer of different printing methods and techniques. These evolve like rich, miniature tapestries into which her fantasies are woven. The work inspires wonder in the viewer, who feels inextricably drawn into Christina Cordero' s visual labyrinth of dreams and memories, hopes and desires.

Whether working in pastels or on her small etched miniatures, the artist works intuitively, creating dreamlike, mythical scenes which represent her own inner world and psyche. Cordero never sketches or consciously composes an image­they evolve spontaneously as she draws directly onto the etching plate or paper. The delicacy of linework belies the intensity of expression underlying them.

Recurrent motifs appear like archetypal symbols: hearts, fish, crescent moons, boats, triangles and hands. Some are used in a deliberately symbolic manner; others arise without explanation for their metaphoric content.

Christina Cordero: Women escape in &oats through the sky, 1993, etching and aquatint, 20x20cm, edition 20

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Above: The Dream-Machine, 1993, etching and aquatint, 9 .9x9.8cm, edition 30

Right: Music for a Dream-Machine, 1993, viscosity etching, 9 .5x9.5cm, edition 10

Opposite top: The Dream-Machine in Red Country, 1993, mixed media on paper (monoprint, collage and oil), 7.5x7 .4 cm

Opposite Centre: The Dream-Machine remembering the 60s, mixed media on paper (marbling, etching and aquatint), 9.8x9.6cm

Opposite below: The Dream-Machine in a garden of daffodils, 1993, mixed media on paper (intagliio, etching, aquatint and oil), 9.7x9.7cm

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The motifs convey a subtle feminist viewpoint. Women traditionally tend the land and care for the young and so Cordero sees the moon as a metaphor for woman's connection with the biological cycles of nature, while hands symbolise woman as nurturer and creator .

The boat is a highly potent symbol, cradling and protecting its occupant. Like the boats she represents, Cordero sees herself as very self-contained . Yet the boat also acts as a symbol for displacement and dislocation. Christina spent most of her life in Chile and then lived in China and France before coming to Australia in 1973 after the military coup in Chile.

In boats that are tied together and also moored to the shore, the artist depicts her links with many cultures and countries. Images of fish also suggest a sense of movement and change as a positive force.

However, a disturbing element is often present: a capsized boat slowly sinking, revealing the sense of fragmentation and isolation often

experienced by a migrant living in a foreign land. The harmonic blue sea is a strong metaphor for the subconscious from which all her images emanate, as implied in the title of one of her etchings: 'I have lost myself in the sea many times.'

Nevertheless, whilst the work can be dark, brooding and wistful in tone, the pervasive mood of her imagery is one of playfulness, celebration and hope. Her artworks tend to be deliberately naive in style and filled with magical elements: hearts and butterflies emerge from a dream-machine as though from a quirky chrysalis; women float in the air in tub-like boats; the crescent moon hangs in the sky like a smile; and triangular amoebic forms dance across the surface of the picture.

The evocative language of South America's 'magic realist' writers, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, have had an undeniable influence on Cordero' s work, as have early abstract painters Kandinsky and Klee, as well as Cy Twombly and Australian painters Ian Fairweather, John Firth­Smith, Tony T uckson and Ann Thomson, among others.

In her abstract compositions, composed of disparate forms, lines and colours, there is an equilibrium and balance not unlike a musical composition. It is this sense of integration and harmony that Cordero seeks in her art, as in her life.

Victoria Hynes

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