Madame Bovary and Hedda Gabler felt that the only way to escape the slave morality in bourgeois society was through death. “Ah, beautiful death.” Flaubert and Ibsen’s comment on modern society in the late 19th century can still be applied today – particularly to women. Following the patterns of society and familial expectation of community, both silent and assumed, is easy. It comes naturally at first. Eventually, however, the pressures by which society insures conformity to its values suppress the individual and the barriers of a modern community prevent one from living a heroic life. The individual is ultimately sacrificed to the majority or, perhaps, the individual, exhausted and defeated, abandons the community leaving empty spaces echoing their mind-numbing hum of submission. Can an individual truly grow 
along with their community? Is the individual sacrificed for the community or is the community sacrificed for the individual? Is alienation always an option or simply a result?
The conflict between duty vs. passion can also be applied to contradictions between ability and desire, will and circumstance and the opposing elements within an individual, persona vs. self. However, the underlying base instinct is freedom. The individual possesses a base sensuality and a lust for physical satisfaction that ultimately all of the pretense and manners of modern society cannot conceal. It is either the outward expression or the inner yearning base instincts that the community makes a distinction between – or places judgment on -- a life lived directly or one lived vicariously.
The role and nature of an artist in modern society is to explore a balance between the freedom of self-fulfillment and agonizing psychic captivity. Ultimately the artist must abandon the community at some level in order to fulfill a spirit of truth and see beyond the walls of external circumstance. The result is a gift, a gift of truth that lurks in friendly ambush waiting and longing for revolutionary conclusions to be drawn and then change – Ah! Beautiful change – can be finally realized.
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In Sickness and in Health, 2005. Charocal on paper. 48x44 inches. Private collection.
For Richer or for Poorer, 2005. Charocal on conte on paper. 48x40 inches. Private collection.
Self Portrait, 2005. Charcoal on paper. Private Collection.
Be sure to see Rochelle's Yellow Woman. "My family knows to paint my face yellow when I pass to the other side so that the Great Mother knows I am a woman ...."
You may contact Rochelle by email to rbsimon "at" snet.net.
