The ongoing art exhibition Witchcraft and Surrealism at LAMB gallery in London is presenting 11 female artists inspired by Surrealism, an art movement exploring the relationship between the rational and unconscious mind and the unconventional and uncanny as sources of creative potential. Arising between the World Wars, Surrealism prioritised the 'subconscious' to effect change and transform the world, giving birth to the artist-magician archetype. Women artists who employed Surrealism in the last century transformed the connotations of women and the occult, rising against the mediaeval history of scapegoating women under the arch of witch-hunt.

The artists participating in Witchcraft and Surrealism include Alma Berrow, Bea Bonafini, Leonora Carrington, Harriet Gillett, Arianne Hughes, Tali Lennox, Paula Rego, Nooka Shepherd, Paula Turmina, Sophie von Hellermann and Georg Wilson. The art exhibition is an invitation into the evolution of the collective, feminine inner world over generations.

British artist Carrington's Series of Witch Hats (c. 1955) transcend the interpretation of stereotypical, conical, mono-coloured black hats; Carrington's hats, titled in French chapeaux, are colourful and reimagined through mythology. One of the works, Chapeau Sport - Deer Stalking, cites the British saying referring to the stealthy hunting of deers for vanity. Other artworks by Carrington include the Chapeau casque antique, a witch hat inscribed in Egyptian mythology, referring to an open, conical helmet with a nose guard, commonly used in the mediaeval period. These paintings were found within one of the portfolios of fellow Surrealist and Carrington’s longtime friend Leonor Fini. The works were born out of Fini's 1952 commission to design a set of otherworldly hats and reflect the close friendship between the two artists and their shared fascination with witchcraft.

Sophie Van Hellermann's contributions to the Surrealism art movement include visual autobiographies intriguing female characters as a medium to explore the vast emotive span of the eclectic, cultural, scientific, and literary references, further fostering a bridge between personal and collective histories. Her oeuvre facilitates an investigation of the boundaries between various feminine archetypes, such as the 'goddess' archetype and the 'witch' archetype, initially blurred by traditional prerogatives. On display at Surrealism and Witchcraft at Lamb Gallery is Hellermann's Untitled (2023) artwork.

Bonafini's art installations, too, speak to the feminine archetype as an agent of life cycles. Her art installations span painting, sculpture, textiles, and ceramics, with textile-based installations acting as portals between the earthly and the otherworldly—a balance of the figurative and the abstract. On display, artwork Hear (2023), appears to be a labyrinth, which is a common point of exploration in her oeuvre. To Bonafini, labyrinths are a dichotomous portal of a lost spirituality and transcendental opening; powdered with pastels, the artwork symbolises microcosm of new mythologies reimagined from the extinction on earth.

Conversely, Brazilian artist Turmina's canvas Satellized Rotation (2023) depicts a post-apocalyptic realm where humans appear to be on the verge of extinction. Her paintings explore a feminine anthropological history of the land, as the elongated figures merge with the ground on which they stand. Shades of red and crimson allude to surreal science fiction, with the Martian landscape and the bark of the Brazilwood tree addressing Brazil's colonial history and the human tendency toward escapism despite the grounding reality.

The exhibition also presents works by Alma Berrow, whose practice interprets and transforms everyday objects with a surreal gaze, amplifying the whim-craft. This soft feminine tendency promotes the liberating idea of ‘play’. On display is Berrow’s art installation Free of Strife(2023), which depicts a detailed series of tarot cards made with ceramics, which she refers to as ‘fakereal’ objects. To quote Berrow from the exhibition catalogue, “The tarot cards 1-20 represent the path one takes in search of their unique place in the world along with its challenges and opportunities. I have not included the fool (0) as this represents the one who wonders this tree of life, leaving them in an order 1-10 for the viewer to understand the laying. From mud pies mixed with foraged greens as a child to tarot cards as an adult. This is an extension of my play with the mysterious, the witchy and the unknown.”

Surrealism as a movement of art and literature rebels against societal conventions. The women protagonists of Surrealism such as Carrington and Fini, and Frida Kahlo, brought to attention longstanding historical biases of gender through a first-hand visual narration of otherworldliness, which in the mediaeval ages led to severe ostracisation and even death sentence. The emergence of Surrealism informed us of the human need to strive for an alignment in conceptions of "reality" and "idiosyncrasy"; Surrealism and Witchcraft seamlessly corresponds to this imperative.

The exhibition 'Surrealism and Witchcraft' is on view at Lamb Gallery until December 20, 2023.