Élan Vital: Recent Paintings

by Anne McTaggart

Weaver Lobby Gallery and McIlrath Landing Gallery

October 9 through January 16, 2010

  The Pearson Lakes Art Center is proud to present Sioux City artist, Anne McTaggart, to exhibit her paintings. McTaggart’s recent paintings are engaged with the French philosopher Henri Bergson’s concept of “élan vital” (vital impetus) and her experience as an oncology nurse.

 Bergon’s idea, first proposed in his book Creative Evolution (1907), provides a world view where life is organized around an originating force that gives rise to both the great variety of life and the creativity that is apparent in the large number of different species and in the complexity of individual organisms. 

While his views of evolution were not accepted as science, they are of interest to artists as a philosophy that treats life as an absolute temporal movement towards the future, informed by both the duration of time and its retention of memory.  The balance between instinct and intelligence separates humans from animals – animals are guided by instinct to survive, while humans require intelligence (in the form of creativity) to survive.  The figure of the bird represents this creative capacity in McTaggart’s paintings.  Her usual icon of the bird form, being reduced to a primordial state, preserves its spirituality but also presents a vulnerable image. 

  McTaggart’s profession has also played a significant role in the development of her work.

“My oncology career has highly influenced my work. The amazing courage and fortitude that I discovered within my patients centered me upon their wonderful ability to rise above the reality of their conditions. They seemed to posses the "vital force" that I found relevant in Henri Bergson's philosophy. The human spirit is so resilient that I couldn't ignore its radiant fortitude. This was especially evident with my patients during the crisis of their lives. My works usually have an intended transfiguration within them, which I hope demonstrates the shift from the mortal reality as we know it to the spiritually of the world beyond, or I could say the spirit within us. My bird icons are the vehicles that I use to symbolize the "spiritual human".  For me the bird form is ideal to demonstrate a flight of transition from the mortal to the spiritual. My oncology career has greatly affected my art and myself. I have been so fortunate to have had both of these opportunities to work in oncology nursing and visual art.”