And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur
This piece, “And then we Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur” takes its inspiration from the painting of the same name (1953) by Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). Carrington was a surrealist painter with her works exhibiting a dreamlike curiousness and are usually presented with no further explanation from the painter. Many pieces are autobiographical in nature and deal with the subject of femininity and female sexuality from a woman’s point of view, showing Carrington refusing the role of muse frequently pushed onto women in the surrealist circle. However, the artist never painted with anyone else in mind and preferred viewers to take in the visual world on its own terms.
The piece takes inspiration from this uncertain, ever changing remembering and forgetting of dreaming seen in so many of Carrington’s paintings. Familiar forms and recognisable themes drift in and out of focus with senses of meter and tonality slipping past the listener. Lush chords grow out of the uncertainty before cycles of repetition grow frenzied. The textures of the materials in the painting influenced the choice of instrumentation with the lightness of the central figure’s billowing petals, crystal clearness of the orbs on the table, and dark stone walls creating a broad palette of sounds to draw from.
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