Mystical Creatures - "The Lioness"

Mystical Creatures - "The Lioness"
Angela Izzo & Britney Penouilh - www.izzoimages.com / www.britneypenouilh.com
Musical Score: Rain Lucien Matheke
The Lioness describes for the artists an important confluence of courage and healing. Oscillating between archetypal, whimsical, and political, The Lioness is meditative of the past year with the overturn of Roe v Wade, Women’s Rights in Iran, and the war in Ukraine, whilst exploring themes of discovery, sacrifice, and release.
In traditional tarot, the Strength card shows a woman stroking the head of a lion, a metaphor for a dangerous activity. In Angela Izzo’s Mystical Creatures tarot, Britney Penouilh is cast as the Strength card and poses as both the woman and the lion.
Adorned in lace and entangled, Strength claws her way to a clearing in the forest where she removes her mask and performs dance and a pagan ritual for taming the animal instincts and raw emotions to approach things with grace and inner strength.
The video’s dream-like whimsical shots and layered imagery are signatures to Izzo’s blended camera techniques, while the costume, altar, and performance are hauntingly evocative of Penouilh’s upbringing in New Orleans, LA.
Britney Penouilh is an interdisciplinary artist whose paintings, sculptures, and installations illustrate landscapes through geological time layered with imagery and ritual of sacred practices, connecting the spiritual realm with the scientific.
The Mystical Creatures tarot deck is an experimental photo series by photographer Angela Izzo using analog film techniques with non-standard cameras and film stocks. Muses in a gender-fluid world of mystery and illusion, Mystical Creatures is an intimate fantasy focused on Major Arcana.
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