Down Below
Down Below is an installation-environment of altered and made found objects (bed, desk, chair), mirrors, feathers, bird netting, Rebecca’s personal notebooks, lighting, and mixed media, 2019.
Down Below creates a domestic-psychological space of wonder and terror. The installation continues Rebecca’s series of bed sculptures and the rooms that begin to take shape around them. In Down Below, a tangled mass of black feathered canopy charges the space below with the feeling of a storm on the way. As visitors gaze down into the mirrored pool, they will see things only visible in reflection.
Stacks of Rebecca’s black bound notebooks again appear in this installation, evoking memories, secrets, writing, and deciphering. This work goes deeper into the powerful dream that started her work as an artist – by bringing one of her very first sculptures into the work - and seen in the mirror. Inspired by a recent potent dream, feathers has become a key symbol and material for Rebecca. For the first time, Rebecca introduces sound into her work in collaboration with sound artist David Hedding.
Down Below asserts that our lives are powered by mystery and informed by our subconscious, our intuition, and our dreams. It asks questions into what we can see, what we can say, what we can discover, how we learn, and what we can see only in hindsight or indirectly. I owe a thank you to the artist Leonora Carrington, who in 1944, wrote a moving memoir titled Down Below.
