Trade him your first caught fish and keep the demon at bay (for now). Summon him with the chant below;Griepke, griepke, grauw, zonder tand en met een mouw.

‘The Libra and the Pear-Tree’ is a painterly performance, an extended Pandora’s Box, spilling with secrets and stories, intertwining family names, truth, or history, presented like a fable, drawing in various elements of Dutch folkloric tales, particulary Osseart but also The Girlw ith Twenty Petticoats, The Baker of Eeklo and The Mermaid of Saeftinghe. As you enter this piece, façades reveal themselves, uni-faceted and binary, a boy and a girl in a sea of troubles. You see them through a window, inside which glows in hues of pink, framed by Dutch elders, the dualism of women and windows in Dutch culture.Inside, the children weighty, suspended, inspired by Wayang Kulit, the Javanese art of shadow puppetry, and links to my past, despite Dutch denial.

My paintings are interchangeable, much like a theatre or fairy-tale. Through this I speak to the idea of an ever-changing story, evolving, multiplying with each iteration, unable to pin down, protected, bursting at the seams. Using Theo Molkenboer’s 1916 photographs as reference, I present history like a souvenir book, holding on to old values, my ancestors anyone, everyone, manifesting culture as I superimpose my face on bodies through paint. I explore my lived experience and history by weaving in folklore relating to my ancestry, and what this means for my own identity.

Tethered to the past, I become my family tree, matriarchal lineage carried through the mother’s side, drowning, rising, bubbling past, present and future, surrounded by fish. My house reflects my inner world, sometimes overwhelming and dramatic, following trauma. Trees curling stories up in their branches, falling like brittle leaves.

Fish become vessels which hold multiple possibilities, the idea of trading fish congruent throughout the piece, representing mental health, trauma, resilience, manifestation, epigenetics, inspired by the story of Osseart, keeping the beast at bay, or manifesting the beast within for survival.

Trauma is not ephemeral, its residue staining the walls in glowing shades, dripping and convulsing, overwhelming. My patriarchal and matriarchal names intertwining as I struggle to find the balance within the pear tree. The performative nature of households, becoming the performer as the journey begins again, this time with a new head.

Ruby Waage Townsend 2023