Australasian Journal Of Psychotherapy
NO.1 - 2014
Cover Art
Wendy Castledon
Mont Ventoux
IMAGE
(writing from Provence, France)
The point of this pastel work of Mont Ventoux was to show from my perspective that this well known high point in Provence could from some distance resemble the female form, especially the breast with nipple. Seen on a warm, hazy summer day this is a delight. In reality, when reaching the summit of this mountain, the breast bristles with man-made objects, radio towers, weather stations, rather brutal cement mounds under which I have been told there is an nuclear bomb shelter. A disturbing mix of female and male, an ambiguity only intensified by the fact that a mountain, in French, is female — la montagne, and yet this Mountain itself is called Le Mont Ventoux, that is, with the male definite article.
I started a series of works around this fact.
Strangely today she [the mountain] is well hidden behind clouds and fleeting rain. In Provence they say, “Il porte son chapeau aujourd’hui’’.
And Wendy’s husband Bill adds, “Her husband appreciated the breasty Mont Ventoux; recognising this to be the best work from her 1993 solo Exhibition, he purchased it to hang in his office.”