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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Jo Bertini, Tracing Red Jasper – Water Witching and Spirit Stones, 2021

Jo Bertini

Tracing Red Jasper – Water Witching and Spirit Stones, 2021
iridescent pigments & oil on French polyester canvas
152.5 x 152.5 cm, 155 x 155 cm (framed)
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Known for its deep red hue, red jasper has been a stone praised and revered by many cultures across the centuries. Red Jasper was a common stone used by the...
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Known for its deep red hue, red jasper has been a stone praised and revered by many cultures across the centuries. Red Jasper was a common stone used by the American Indians for various ceremonial purposes. It was used as an offering during rain-making rituals and was thought to offer the wearer guidance when dowsing for water. Some Native American tribes thought Red Jasper increased one’s sensitivity to the Earth. They believed that red jasper was the blood of Mother Earth, and would use it as a type of instrument, to facilitate rebirth and aid them in calling particular rain (light or heavy for planting, harvesting, guidance etc). There are many secret, hidden places within deserts that are evidence of magic. Stones and crystals have medicinal or healing properties and the lands they come from are seen as the source of these bewitching powers. Sometimes there is no scientific explanation for the remedies and remarkable healing powers that these places produce. Plants, animals and people can be guided to find unseen water where there is only sand. It is the unexplained, mysterious, elusive nature of these silent, remote, isolated lands that I am interested in to increase my own sensitivity to the earth. Often the most seemingly empty land is the most powerful and mysterious, appearing as something but simultaneously also the opposite. Recently, the dualities of ancient myths and legends, spirit voices, are coinciding with scientific discoveries about these stories and properties in the desert. Deserts are covered in human stone carvings, petroglyphs, signs and story. Rain making rituals, guidance markers, totems, symbols, emblems, icons, song lines, spirit beings, mythical animals, chants and charms. Humans are compelled to indicate and disclose important discoveries but then will often overpaint or hide them so that only the initiated can see. These secrets held within the land disrupt and subvert meaning according to ones personal identity. Meanings only reveal themselves according to the nature, experiences and knowledge of the viewer.
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Arthouse Gallery

66 McLachlan Avenue

Rushcutters Bay NSW 2011

+61 2 9332 1019

ABN 73 080 113 926

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Tuesday to Friday 9.30am - 6pm

Saturday 10am - 5pm

Arthouse Gallery acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the traditional owners of the land upon which the gallery stands.

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