If you haven’t had a chance to visit the Southern Vermont Arts Center and the exhibition of Elizabeth Torak’s The Feast of Venus I, I urge you to do so. I believe the reaction by the public to the opening was a surprise to the Arts Center. Visitors stood around in complete awe at the painting and the entire exhibit. It was like a miracle. People couldn’t take their eyes off the painting. The inner strength, the creativity, and the struggles of creation are so apparent. The viewer is privy to a unique door inside the artist’s mind and process.

The exhibit centers on the large figure painting, The Feast of Venus I (the first in the projected series The Feast of Venus) and includes 37 drawings and eight oil studies that went into its development. From inspired scribbles to highly finished working drawings, to experiments with composition, you will follow Torak at work from the birth through to creation. In this exhibit you come as close as is possible to understanding the creative experience as it is lived by the artist.

Venus is the mythological goddess traditionally associated with beauty, love, and fertility. A theme of the Baroque period, paintings of The Feast of Venus typically depict a voluptuous goddess surrounded by dozens of frolicking men, women, infants, and the occasional satyr.

In Elizabeth Torak’s interpretation Venus is an internal force: not a goddess to be worshiped, but an inner strength to be felt. Her feast is a celebration of women, a consideration of the relationship between women and food, and a meditation on the mystery of creativity. Perhaps, there is something defiant in Torak’s implicit insistence that this kind of beauty is worthy of attention.

Activity in the Feast of Venus centers on the preparation of a seafood soup. Water, often associated with the feminine, is a metaphor for intuition and the unconscious mind. The mythology of Venus is that she was born from the sea. The Feast of Venus I is suffused with water: steam rises from the simmering soup while the spray from a hose washes down a pile of vegetables. The palette is based on ocean colors: umbers, ochres, blues and greens. At the center of the composition three cooks surround a large pot. They sprinkle salt, taste and add vegetables while other cooks peel potatoes, dice carrots and handle produce. Heaps of vegetables, fish, and shellfish strew the scene—products of the earth and sea. Like a bonfire on the beach, the fire at the center sets off the color harmony and simultaneously ignites the metaphor: the flame under the kettle converts produce into soup as the fire of imagination makes art out of life.

Lynn Barrett, publisher/editor
prime@svcable.net