Duct IV is featured as on the cover of the July issue of the International Journal of Art Therapy: Inscape.
Duct IV is part of a series of works entitled Forms of Containment, a reference to the influential British psychoanalyst, Wilfred Bion. In a therapeutic context the term ‘containment’ describes the safe and holding environment that enables patients or clients to actively project their negative feelings onto the therapist so that they can then be contained, detoxified and given back to the client in a more manageable form (Edwards, 2004: 47). Duct IV looks to express something of the unstable, perilous nature of the therapeutic relationship; often both the client and the therapist are affected and changed in some way.
I personally associate the rigour of the therapeutic process with the dynamic qualities of clay being shaped on a potter’s wheel. One might reshape or reframe one’s way of thinking as a result of effective therapeutic intervention. The image of clay being manipulated on a wheel is linked to my own understanding of therapy as a transformative, yet hazardous, process.
References:
Edwards, D., (2004), Art Therapy, London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
For more information go to http://www.baat.org/About-BAAT/Blog/77/International-Journal-of–
