The myths that depict how anything has come to existence and that always relate to creation tell us the origin of ‘things.’ Mythologies can be defined as the documents that hide the knowledge and ideas, which were generated deep in history. Campbell suggests that the mythological narrations have visible and invisible aspects and that it is necessary to reveal their invisible aspect, rather than the visible aspect. This finding is valid for symbols too. Symbols are the picturized forms of mythologies and there are close ties between mythologies and symbols.

The language and ‘persons’ of the unconscious are the symbols whereby our dreams contact us. Therefore, researching people and their symbols indeed means researching the mankind’s relation with his own unconscious.

The symbol-based narration has been adopted from past to present by many artists as it embodies a sort of knowledge with codes and selected as a method for the generation of artworks. The tales and myths, which are still subject to the artworks today, have moved beyond the depiction of stories and “personalized” especially in recent years and they have been transformed through the generation of a new wave that is based on a special narration and expression whereby the artist creates his own myth and mythologizes his world.

Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1997, Installation View, 
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne

Kiki Smith, Born, 2002. Lithograph, edition 4 of 28. Brooklyn Museum, Emily Winthrop Miles Fund, 2003.17

Kiki Smith, Rapture, 2001, Bronze, 67 1/4 x 62 x 26 1/2 inches. Edition of 3. Photo by Ellen Page Wilson. Courtesy The Pace Gallery, New York

Esra Sağlık, from the serie ‘Selfportrait’, roses, 50 x 70 cm.  2008

Esra Sağlık, Ah, drawing on canvas,  2011

Bibliography:

BERNADAC, Marie  Laure. Louis  Bourgeois. Paris : Edition du Centre Pompidou, 2008.

CAMPBELL, Joseph. İlkel Mitoloji (Çev. Kudret Emiroğlu). Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 2006.

ESTES, C. P. (2011). Kurtlarla Koşan Kadınlar-Vahşi Kadın Arketipine Dair Mit ve Öyküler (Çev. Hakan Atalay). İstanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları.

JUNG, Carl Gustav. İnsan ve Sembolleri (Çev. Ali Nahit Babaoğlu). İstanbul: Okuyan Us Yayınevi, 2009.

RUSH Michael, DANNAT Adrian. The Smiths. New York: Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, 2002.