“Liberated at being able to walk without flesh.” - The Skeletons Holiday

“I gave it back and said if he wanted cigarettes, he could bloody well get them himself, I wasn’t daunted by any of them.”

Leonora Carrington was a woman ahead of her time. A feminist surrounded by male artists and never overlooked by her husband, Max Ernest, who was seen as one of the most prolific artists at that time.

Since I began reading her short stories, delving into her mind, her artwork, and her life, while I was at university, I have felt a connection to Leonora Carrington. I was inspired by her without even knowing, and since then my work has been influenced by her even more. I was drawn to the words she wrote in her book of short stories “The Debutant and other stories.” Seeing how her paintings matched with her stories I felt a connection to her.

Even though she had died seven years prior, she was the author and artist I had been searching for, a woman known in the Surrealist movement, which drew me to the subject in the first place, when I was studying Art History.

She was born in the Northwest of England like me, but in very different circumstances, spanning an entire generation and lifestyle, however I still understood. A feminist artist during a world war, captured by Nazis, Leonora didn’t back down. Like many artistic people, including myself, she suffered from depression and poor mental health, not understood in the early part of the 20th century, even being forced into an asylum. I can empathise.

Reading how she moved to Mexico to liberate Mexican women, despite her own struggles, proves how much she meant to so many people, and yet so many do not know about her. Her stories are unique and powerful, her words dance upon the pages. “The Debutant” which describes her life in a surrealist way, made me fall in love with her. The way she used metaphors, to describe the hyena as an ordinary debutant girl in disguise. I saw myself in her. The moment I discovered Leonora I was captivated; I wanted to research and know everything about her as I could see myself growing old like she did.

She was outspoken, radical for the period. Even for today’s standards she may have been called brazen, but she spoke her mind. Being a woman in a male dominated field didn’t faze her, it just made her more fearless.

“I am as mysterious to myself as I am mysterious to others.”

This quote of hers speaks to me. She may not know which direction she was going and people may ask about what it is she does, but with life you must go with the flow.

A woman that caused tension between her male peers. With the art Max Ernest painted, he portrayed women carved into the façade of their home, an image of himself. Carrington on the other hand, women were granted interiority. They expressed desire, and their figures, even when freed from earthly confines, were made whole.

I admire her for standing out from the crowd, taken as a prisoner of war, shut away from the world in a Spanish asylum were she expressed this in words throughout her book, “Down Below” saying:

“I have no delusions; I am just playing.”

A woman comfortable in her own skin, a lesson I try to apply to my own life even when writing the topics, I like to write however dark or strange they seem to appear to someone else. I am happiest when I write and draw unconventional ideas. Leonora’s own work had grown lush with its own lore and androgynous beings. A menagerie of animals abounded as symbols of her own “inner bestiary.”

“Cats speak with me, they are cleaner than humans,” This nonessential speak is how I like to write in my work through fantasy and lore. Perhaps people disagree with this style of story and character but as Lenora Carrington was, just be yourself.

The year before she died, she visited close to where she grew up. I would have given anything to have spoken to her or even just listened for a few moments, alas, I am happy that her legacy lives on through her art and her stories.