Exhibitions

The Vegetative Soul

An Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Joan Hanley at AVA Gallery, May 10 to June 30, 2024

Joan Hanley paints contemporary life with traditional materials; oil paint on linen, canvas and wood. In this exhibition, Her paintings explore her usual subjects: family members on cell phones, coupling, grouping and uncoupling, But in this case as if seen by a plant in the room or a tree out the window. She pursues the perspective of the vegetative soul.

The Vegetative Soul was first named in our western canon by Aristotle in 300bc. He taught that human beings have a rational, animal and vegetative soul. The vegetative soul was thought of as a lower soul, with the others above it and of greater value.

Hanley suspends the order and questions the qualities, gifts and dangers of this unconscious, still, connected, non verbal and unthinking plant consciousness. Her lifelong interest in meditation, and soul psychology have prepared her to make these paintings. Travel to China, Japan, India and Mexico, leading groups in painting rituals, studying art, Chan, Zen Buddhism Tantra and yoga. Soul traditions prepared her to value this “lower” perspective.

The vegetative soul grows, reproduces, and regenerates, not through thinking or even through the senses but from a deeper ( lower) collective power. What might it show us about life in 2024?