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The feelings, loneliness and fear, that inspired these works, collectively titled "Getting Back Up," were the side effects of her battle with cancer. "There was a time I feared I would die in my sleep because of the chemotherapy," Matherly says. At that time, she also didn't think it was right for her to let love into her life until she knew she would survive. The pieces, Matherly explains, represent her finding the strength to rise from the physical and emotional exhaustion brought on both by cancer and its treatment. Or perhaps they represent being protected and nurtured by someone else. "They could be me dreaming of having someone to comfort me," she says, "or of me loving myself as a way to dispel loneliness."
"Yellow, Getting Back Up", for example, shows two figures, one on hands and knees with head torqued to look at another figure that is not only rising up but, with one arm thrown into the air, appears triumphant. "The Many Sides of Me," perhaps the most striking piece in the series, presents several figures in tangled confusion. And like "Yellow, Getting Back Up," there is one figure rising from this chaos.
Other works included in this small show are two large works, "Moving On Together" and "Drifting Through Our Storms," both acrylic paint on canvas. Though the medium is different, the works touch on several similar themes as "Getting Back Up." Like the pastel on paper works, these paintings represent non-gender figures, so close together as to be one, adrift in small boats seemingly suspended somewhere between seething sea and serious sky. Though the scenes can appear foreboding, there is a sense of serenity in these works. It seems certain that these two figures will make it to safety or by being together have already achieved it.
These non-gender figure, also appear throughout the books of drawings she refers to as her journals. Matherly was given the first of these shortly after her grandmother died in October 1991 with the suggestion that she dig deep into her emotions. The advice seemed to pay off; in March 1994 she was part of her first group show. Three months later she hung her first solo show at Club Cafe. Over these seven-and-a-half years, Matherly has filled 35 journals. She hopes one day to publish some of her journal drawings as a coffee table book in an effort to connect to people who may have had similar struggles.
"A lot of my work is a voice for some people who can't put thier emotions into words," Matherly says. Sometimes though, she can give people's emotions too strong a voice. Once, a man fell in love with one of her works, but decided he couldn't buy it. It had touched him so deeply, he didn't think he could have it hanging in his home. |
