Don’t Be Afraid

Group Art Exhibition
Terra Housing, 1848 Commercial Drive Vancouver
Opening Reception Saturday August 8, 2015

“There is a part of ourselves of which we are afraid – that we try to hide, and deny.”
Carl Jung called this the Shadow.

For the Don’t Be Afraid exhibition, curated by Dominique Norville, AVA artists plunged themselves into the realm of the dark, frightening and profane. From the Curator’s Statement:

The idea for this show stems from the Jungian archetype of the Shadow. Carl Jung said that we are afraid of that part of ourselves containing desires and ideas that are abhorrent, that he termed the Shadow.

As a result we spend a lot of time in denial of the Shadow. But then the Shadow, sort of like a bobbing cork, pops up in surprising places when we least expect it. It cannot be denied, and will surface eventually no matter how hard we push it down into our psyche. In fact the harder we push, the harder it pops up.

Jung said that we should literally turn and embrace our Shadow, because it is only in doing so that we can integrate it into our Self and become whole. So, don’t be afraid of the Shadow.

Shadow Image by Carrie Campbell
Shadow Image by Carrie Campbell

Art by:

Jan MacLean
David MacLean
Rena del Pieve Gobbi
Heather Renney
Eva Waldauf
Dominique Norville
Trish Mitchell
Alexis Greenwood
Jenn Strom
Carrie Campbell
Helen Spaxman