The Forest Adventures of Amelia Heart-Air
Amelia Heart-Air, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
She knew the deer was a sign, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
Hair on Fire, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The Tree-hugger, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The Raven and the Moon, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The Dream with Three Snakes, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The Forest Queen, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
Rallying Cry, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The Tree-climbers, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
Underneath the waterfall, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The centrifugal force connected their energies,
it was also a handy technique for drying ones hair
oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
Twin Flames, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
Bow-down, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The Tree, oil on panel 8 x10" 2015
The initiate—a modern day, reality TV-watching housewife Amelia Heart-Air—ventures in to the forest, desperately seeking reconnection with nature and an escape from daily life. In analytical psychology, the forest represents the unconscious and the feminine as perceived by a young boy or man: a disturbing territory as yet unexplored. But here, it is a spiritual testing ground for our initiate, a realm of death holding the secrets of nature that man/woman must penetrate to tap hidden meaning. Trees are often seen as maternal symbols; yet, at the same time, the erect trunk is a phallic symbol. Perhaps this is why, for Carl Jung, the tree symbolized the Self, androgyny and individuation.
The paintings, follow Amelia Heart-Air’s imagined forest sojourn, as both an exercise in foraging the seeker’s unconscious and a light-hearted progression from Emma Gray’s last series of paintings, “The Streakers”.
Riding a Stag, 16 x 20", oil on wooden panel, 2015 
