Bravery in the sculpture: Linde Ivimey's creative spirit

by Sylvie Shaw

Religious theorist Birgit Meyer (2012) makes the point that 'religious feelings...are made possible and reproducible by certain modes of inducing experiences of the transcendental'. Such feelings and experiences, she argues, can be dispersed or induced through a range of ‘sensations’ that connect to the divine. Meyer takes issue with William James’ (1910) significant work, Varieties of religious experience, commenting that James' persuasion on religious encounters act to distance the experiential connections with the divine from ‘intellectual, rational dispositions’ (158), the doctrine, dharma and dogma which are essential elements in religious worship.

Distinguishing or splitting body from mind is not apparent in the work of sculptor Linde Ivimey currently on show at The University of Queensland's UQ Art Museum. Her work floats with transcendent feeling. It evokes profundity and provokes questions. But Linde holds us, transfixed, with her aesthetic and her craft. 

Pondering the meaning of her sculptural pieces, one is moved by the depth of the artist’s intention, her relationship with place, religion, childhood, story and myth which emerges so strongly. 

Linde Ivimey's evocative work stays with you. As I walked through the gallery, I felt an overwhelming sense of narrative, sometimes dark and painful, sometimes buoyant and playful as each piece touched me. Linde’s ideas and dreams, her reflections and passions are resplendent within each of the pieces.  

The centrepiece of the exhibition is startling. Twelve cloak-enshrouded figures parade linked together in a chain of brotherhood and feeling. I was asked what it reminded me of, and I replied, 'prisoners at Guantanamo Bay'. One of my students, a deeply religious Christian, said it was 'a prison chain gang'. When it was explained that these figures represent the 12 apostles, the explanation pointed to the dual side of humanity and religion – at once compassionate, at once despairing of Christ’s great passion and passing. 

Linde’s work expresses a profound emotionality. She takes us on a journey through her childhood curiosity and love of story into Alice’s and Rabbit’s fairy tale existence and we smile at the innocence of these figures as we too, the viewer, explore our own childhood fantasies and memories of toys, stories, animals, and games. 

Then there are the dark figures that take us somewhere else – and her work confronts us with its humanity and its pain. 

Walking through the gallery is a journey into our own souls and hearts. Her work reveals a rawness on one hand, and a tenderness on the other. These descriptions of opposites are what comes to mind when reflecting on the detail and effort-full work involved in creating her very intricate structures. I marvel too on the genius of creativity and ingenuity that recycles meat (in the form of bones) into art. 

Her figures swathed in cloth and enveloped in bone bare their exo-skeleton to the whole world. It protects them, providing a coat of armour that can’t be prised open. But, through her skillful crafting, somehow Linde does allow us in. She too bares her psyche through the work and takes us on a journey into our own souls as well. Perhaps, in that journey we could ask ourselves - what are we too covering up? 

Normally we keep our skeleton on the inside. Sometimes we try to cover up our vulnerability through self-discipline, but prise the bones apart, and there is heart and feeling. 

I watch in awe as Linde weaves the bones into a kind of fabric that tells a story and expresses a range of emotions. Uplifting and fearful at the same time. Linde digs into her childhood fantasies, her experiences growing up with a Catholic religious framework, and her recent travels to Antarctica to inspire us to go inward, to journey far into the recesses of our childhood memories, and our own travel experiences in out of the way places. 

She brings all these experiences and passions to us as a gift of extraordinary value. She makes us confront the deep recesses of our psyches that are honoured and celebrated in her passionate and very thought-provoking figures. She creates images that stay with us for a long time, long after we’ve left the gallery. She is a sculptor of tremendous breadth. 

Linde Ivimey has won several awards for her feelings-encased work. She is much renown for the risks she takes with her pieces, and the time, care and effort she takes to engage with story, myth and religion. I read that she spent around 20 years in her studio perfecting her art and that is clearly visible in the exhibition at UQ.

Linde is not content to play with her art. It is clearly intended to have emotional impact – like her works, this impact is complex and intricate. It blends the physicality of the biophysical world, animals, bones, hair, teeth, as archeological and sacred finds, with such a high degree of technical competence and beauty. Her work lives with the idea of the edge. It resonates and speaks to us in ways we are not used to. And, strangely, we love the shiver or frisson that emanates from her work, that takes us into fear and then into fantasy.

A small part of her current exhibition focuses on a group of fearless explorers in Antarctica not long after the dawn of the Australian nation, when explorers sought to reveal the secrets during what became known as the Heroic Age. The standout figure in Linde's posse of explorers is Douglas Mawson, an Australian, who spent much of his life dedicated to this great but perilous southern iced continent.

Mawson touched the bridge between life and death. He survived through his resilient demeanour and his belief in Divine Providence. His steely determination emerges in the figures Linde has created – and you can see their strength and their tough exploits moulded in their ice and snow-covered faces.

The region of Antarctica is endangered by climate change and Linde, through this homage to Mawson, carries the message to us to care for the planet. 'Leave no trace and take only photographs' is the motto of eco-travellers. Linde Ivimey’s sculpture adds a dimension to that motto. She has brought the taste and trace of the Antarctic, and the age of heroism, through her evocative re-storying of the Mawson legend. 

Her work can take our breath away but can also take us to places we least expect. 

Meyer (2012) seems to concurs. In commenting on the study of religion she states that 'we need to recognise the phenomenological reality of religious experience as grounded in bodily sensations' (164). These sensational experiences come alive in the shared engagement of religious practices, practices and rituals that are embedded in the relationship between 'self and community' (166). 

In relation to Linde Ivimey's sculpture, bodily sensations are both represented through the figures and exchanged in dialogue between the viewer, the artist and the pieces themselves. Linde invokes a spiritual world, peopled by saints, childhood fantasies and lastly by adventurers who put their life on the line in the service of exploration, science and research. Through the stories she reveals from the bowels of her life, she helps us understand the multiplicity of emotions and sensations abundant in connecting with the transcendental.

Questions
- In what way would you describe Linde Ivimey's sculptures as religious or spiritual?
- Why do you think that saints, the 'Four Horsemen' and the apostoles are significant features of Linde's work?
- How do you envision her holism, the link between the physical (bones and other earthy elements), the psychological or emotional, the intellectual and the spiritual? 
- Define what you gleaned from your excursion into her work.  

Reference
Meyer B. 2012. Religious sensations: media, aesthetics, and the study of contemporary religion. In G. Lynch, ed., Reader in religion, media, culture. London: Routledge.

Image Source:
Pixabay: http://pixabay.com/en/antarctica-km-south-pole-63056/