IT’S a beautiful collaboration.
Naomi Segal’s stark, vulnerable poems brought to life in a series of strange and slightly mythical paintings by Elly Hope.
An art psychotherapist, Hope has more than 25 years’ experience in the community arts and counselling sector, working with children and adults, including those with mental health and addiction issues.
So it’s no surprise that her paintings have a lot of depth, with sombre faces peering out from geometric shapes, naked bodies entwined in thorny branches, and people embracing as they sink into a lake.
“Some of Naomi’s poetry is humorous, but most is poignant,” Hope says. “I particularly connected to Loss, The Last Bed, Autumn and Setsunai, but I connected to all of them in different ways.
• Poet Naomi Segal (above) and painter Elly Hope (below) collaborated on Soul Synergy.
“The process involved me reading and reflecting on the meaning within the poetry, and once I felt a strong heartfelt connection, I thought more about the human connection and possibly my own lived experiences.”
Hope says Segal’s poetry inspired her to start painting again after taking an unplanned break when that pesky thing called life got in the way.
“I have always been influenced by German Expressionist artists like Kirchner, Mueller, Kollwitz, Klee and Kandinsky, and also Frida Kahlo,” Hope says.
“They all painted emotion, expression, and themes from everyday life, and that is what interests me as an artist and psychotherapist.
“I want the viewer to ‘feel’ something when viewing my images.”
The 26 acrylic paintings in the exhibition include a portrait of Segal—pale blues and pinks peering out from a set of reading glasses with wispy frames.
“I love her portrait of me, which so clearly captures the feeling of loss,” the poet says.
Segal has led an interesting life: she started her career as a librarian, then veered into environmental activism, helping her partner lead wilderness expeditions, before leaving the rhinos behind and settling down in the equally frightening world of tertiary education as a university academic.
She’s written a PhD thesis and academic publications, and since 2017 has been the organiser of the Victoria Park Writers’ Group.
“In my poetry I aim for honesty, directness, simplicity, accessibility, universality, and brevity,” Segal says.
“The themes of the exhibition are multiple: grief, loss, mourning, love, family, death, peace, war, love and respect for nature, birds, gardens, and my relation to all of these. I love Elly’s representation of my recovery from family dysfunction by way of magpie rescue.
“I love her representation of my Whole poem—she has captured the completeness and peacefulness of the experience.”
There’s a lovely economy and leave-taking poignancy to Segal’s poetry, which only comes with life experience and that feeling you don’t need to prove anything to anyone, anymore.
“I am there when the blueness breaks and the sky moves darkly across your face. I see how the darkness settles, then sinks into the deepest deep of you, where the hypolimnion dwells, silently, wordlessly.”
Soul Synergy is at the Inglewood Arts Hub Gallery, 895 Beaufort Street, Inglewood from August 19 to 29. There’s a poetry reading and artist talk on Sunday August 23 at 1pm. For more info see inglewoodartshub.org.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK