A Few Noteworthy Facts About The Artist Herself...

by Lisa B.

 


It's a terrible thing to be alone -- yes it is -- it is -- but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath --as terrible as you like --but a mask. -- Katherine Mansfield

 

 'It's still a lie. Like the lie about masks.'
'What lie about masks?'
'The way people say they hide faces.'
'They do hide faces,' said Nanny Ogg.
'Only the one on the outside.'
["Maskarade" by Terry Pratchett 

p. 223, Esme and Gytha]

"Because I am visual, I put these creative processes into images. So in my mind I am putting out a shingle - my sign that says "do drop in". And I wait. And I see who turns up. And when they do, we can have tea...and have a chat while I try to get them into the real world..." - Daena Ortego.
 
Some artists need silence and the lull between lines in order to create, the pause between breaths. Daena needs the pause that's in the ether, that in faery terms would be called the periphery vision or the silence between dreams. Twilight time. By opening her inner house to the faery she coaxes all kinds of creatures from between the realms. Through her water colours to her masks she brings out some invisible tangent in the universe and makes it maifest. We glimpse things that without her we would never knew existed, she gives them a new creation with the moulding and the flashes of paint and neoprene (whatever that is), plaster and fabric. Because of the open house - or open inner mind - policy she has to the fae we get snatches of fantasy, which is a very rich gift to have indeed, I believe.
 
And belief is key.
 
Chameleon haired Daena fashions into reality all of this art in Louisiana where she was born and raised. Whilst the pot is brewing on the stove and the curtain twitches with the fae - or is that just her cats that let her dwell with them - she might potter about in the garden and nurture the flowers or play a game. Or muse over history and science. Or pull apart the latest theories for Lost. And if the wait is lingering into the dusk, she might pass the time watching old sci-fi. She is also partial to the laughing out loud at engrish. Well, we all need our escapism.
 
Daena is 32, but some of the mythological and fantastical and elfame-dwelling magic has rubbed itself off on her and she often twitches with some spritely energy. Perhaps the faery have made themselves at home in her and we see that through her art. She is the one who calls them up.
 
"So maybe artists are a little closer to the screaming-mumbling-padded-walls type than the
average person. So the voices in my head and the images I see behind closed eyes at night are just the manifestations of whatever illness I have that I call my art. What matters is what people believe..."