Margaret Witschl | A Yearning for Absolutes

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Margaret Witschl, "No Climbing"

acrylic on canvas, 30" × 30". Courtesy of the Gallery.

I want my mind to be well. I believe that my art, both content and process, plays a large role in that desired outcome.

For more than a decade my work has explored anxiety. I have considered the random, unpredictability of life and the unsettling effects of not knowing what comes next – ideas which can evoke worry and perhaps even panic.

In my work I suggest the ideas of chance, risk, and coincidence by applying a variety of seemingly random, disconnected images and unrelated work processes. The images are chosen for their power to suggest anxiety: weapons, warnings, barriers, violence, conflict, peril, loss. Some are drawn from my personal diary of events gone awry, worrisome visions and fretful dreams.

While accepting the reality of unpredictability, I recognize the instinctive need to make sense of things to feel secure and to find reason and purpose. To express this sense of control in a world of chaos, I place the images over a consistent geometric pattern. This nine square pattern with its unvaried structure is there to suggest reliability, stability and perhaps, comfort.

For the past 5 years, I have been the supporter for one who is living with memory loss. The work of caregiver is a worrisome, frustrating and grief-filled journey. On the upside, it also results in a more finely focused view of anxiety and gives me new emotional content and many images to work with. Not surprisingly the images reflect challenging behaviours and events and the many emotions experienced in dealing with them.

The act of making art in this situation is surprisingly comforting. Like recording one's difficulties in a journal, these paintings give me a place to “park” my worry, my frustration, my grief. It is helping my mind be well.

- Margaret Witschl May, 2023