Inventory of the Subconscious Mind Catalogue

© 2023

Design: Otilia Martin

Translation: Lisa Norris

All works displayed in this catalogue are owned by Otilia Martin

Ordering prints: Send an email to otilia@otiliamartin.com with print number and size

Contact: otilia@otiliamartin.com

IG: otilia_m_art

02 Inventory of the Subconscious Mind

Carl Jung

In each of us is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from the way we see ourselves.

Touch

Then the octopus appeared under the grey plastic pool, one of his legs had been chopped and I felt it. The animal reached out with fierce movements. I knew, I knew one of his legs would find my shoulder and I felt the melancholy of his touch.

Inventory of the Subconscious Mind

Consciousness succumbs all too easily to unconscious influences, and these are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking.

Carl Gustav Jung

Inventory of the Subconscious Mind is a collection of digital collages coming from dreams that I’ve had, as a way to build a bridge between the Conscious Mind we know and the Subconscious Mind that we don’t know.

I invite you to open the gates to your Subconscious Mind, to start building that bridge also. I hope this exhibition inspires you to look at your dreams as an endless source of You, as a bridge between your Small You and your Big You to be the Amazing Whole You.

Undirvitundarskráin er safn stafræna klippimynda úr draumum mínum til að byggja brú á milli meðvitundina sem við þekkjum og undirvitundina sem við þekkjum ekki.

Ég býð þér að opna hliðin að undirvitundinni og byrjað að byggja brúnna líka.

Ég vona að þessi sýning mun hvetja þig til að líta á drauma þína sem endalausa uppruna af Þér, sem brú á milli þitt Litla Þú og þitt Stóra Þú til að vera þitt Yndislega Heila Þú.

Fyrir nokkrum árum gekk ég í gegnum erfiða sköpunarblokk. Ég lamaðist tilfinningalega og faglega. Hins vegar, á hverri nóttu í draumum mínum lifði ég mest skapandi reynslu í undarlegum, áferðarfallegum, lituðum, annarsheimsbundnum sagnadraumum. Það var sköpunarkraftur í mér sem var einungis grafinn djúpt af meðvitundarlífi mínu.

Til að koma allri þessari sköpunargáfu inn í hið vakna líf, byrjaði ég á því að velja eitt augnablik úr drauminum þar sem kjarninn var og sýna hann svo í einni mynd -stafrænni klippumyndsem ég bjó til á 30 mínútum með myndum fengnar frá netinu.

Fyrstu klippimyndirnar sýndu frosið ástand mitt, en með þrautseigju, æfingu og meira en 30 mínútur gat ég búið til brú með sköpunargáfunni og auðæfum sem leynast í mér. Mér tókst að tengja mitt Litla Mig með mínu Stóra Mig í gegnum sköpunargáfu og list.

2. Barnæska/ endurhvörf

Fyrsti draumurinn sem ég man eftir gerðist þegar ég var 6 ára. Það var vani heima hjá mér að tala um draumana sem okkur dreymdi nóttina áður, svo ég ólst upp við að samtöl um drauma voru þættir í daglegu lífi hjá öllum fjölskyldum. samtöl voru algeng venja í hverri fjölskyldu.

Fyrir nokkrum árum byrjaði ég að skrifa draumadagbækur sem ég er alltaf með á mér. Án drauma minna og muy morguninn-eftir endurminningu er ég ekki heil.

3. Meðferð/ Upplýsa í myrkrinu

Ástundun draumadagbókar hjálpar við að skoða draumana frá öðru sjónarhorni. Við höfum tilhneigingu til að líta á drauma sem brjálaða, æðislega eða skelfilega upplifanir. En með dagbókarfærslu getum við séð að draumar eru ekki bara uppspretta endalausra sköpunargáfu sem hefur lyklana fyrir sjálfsþekkingu.

Það er heill heimur (reyndar margir) í draumum með borgum sem þú getur skoðað aftur og aftur, skýra boðskapa um lífið þitt , reynslur sem hafa áhrif á þig og eins og í mínu tilfelli, ákveðna tilhneigingu til að elta mitt æðra sjálf.

Þegar þú byrjar að vinna með sjálfum þér í gegnum drauma, að skýra óttann og gallana, finna blæbrigði sambanda sem undan hefur komist meðvitund þinni. Síðan koma hlutir sem þú hefur ómeðvitað skynjað koma til þín aftur í draumaheiminum sem tákn, persóna eða skilaboð.

Ég nota þessi innsæi sem hjálpargagn fyrir sjálfsþekkingu, til að leysa skilaboðin bak við táknmálin, til að hafa samband við innsæið mitt, til að fá svör frá leyndri og falinni visku minni…eða upplifa ótrúlega hluti þegar ég hef lucid drauma.

Ég vona að þú sért jafn forvitin og ég um hvað sem leynist undir yfirborðinu af öllu því sem við vitum um okkur sjálf og fagna þessari mögnuðu ferð inn á við.

1. Ævisaga/Áskorunin

1. Bio / The challenge

Some years ago I was going through a rough creative block. I was paralyzed emotionally and professionally. However, every night in my dreams I lived the most creative experiences in bizarre, textured, coloured, otherworldly, storyteller dreams. There was creativity in me, it was only buried by the troubles of my conscious life.

To bring all this creativity to the awakened life, I started a practice of choosing one moment of the dream that contained its essence and portray it in one image -a digital collage- that I had to create in 30 minutes with images from the internet.

The first collages were showing my frozen state, but through perseverance and practice I was able to create a bridge with the creativity and richness that was buried in me. I was able to connect the Small Me to the Big Me through creativity and art.

2. Childhood / Flashback

The first dream I remember happened when I was 6 years old. At home, it was a daily practice to share dreams we had the previous night, so I grew up thinking that having dreams as part of daily conversations was a common practice in every family. Some years ago I started writing dream journals that I carry with me. Without my dream and my morning-after recollection, I am not complete.

3. Therapy / Enlightened in the dark

The practice of dream journaling helps to consider dreams from other perspectives. We tend to think that they are crazy, amazing or scary experiences, but through journaling, we can see that they are not only a source of endless creativity, but they hold a key for self-knowledge.

There is a whole world (many in fact) in dreams, with cities you can revisit, clear messages about your life, experiences that have an impact on you and, in my case, a certain tendency to chase my higher self.

—-

When you start working therapeutically with dreams, deciphering fears and flaws, gathering nuances of your relationships with others that have escaped the awakened you, then things you have felt unconsciously come back in dreams through a symbol, a person, a message.

I am using these insights as a tool for selfknowledge, to decipher the message behind the symbolic language, to connect with my intuition, to get answers from my own hidden wisdom…or to experience amazing things when I dream lucidly.

I hope you are as curious as me about what is hidden underneath the surface of all we think we know about ourselves, and embrace this amazing journey towards the mysteries of the dream.

Resentment

“All the poison I feel that shouldn’t be in me, all the ways you have tainted all that was pure in me”. And yet, I was wrong and she, though not completely innocent, hadn’t been guilty either.

Shush brain

Shush brain, shush brain at last. Swallow the poisoned lullaby of blindness and lies. Keep your mouth shut, and turn off your eyes, gather the peanuts the emperor pays for our lives.

White socks

The lower half of the body felt on the ground with a thud, creating a poodle of blood that merged with the river of rain, beer and urine. I looked at my bare feet and saw my immaculate white socks soaking with the blood of the woman severed in two.

Underground corpse

The bombing was located on the tracks of the underground, there were corpses everywhere, then I saw a human trunk, on the ground. It had no skin and I could see his slippery flesh. Where the eyes had been there were only two white balls melting into a white fluid flowing in both side of his cheeks. He was one of the perpetrators.

The Great Pretender

The little Scorpion learnt the hard way to protect its craving heart.

Otilia Martin

Wounded

The three beasts roamed in my bedroom, while I stood frozen, not even daring to breathe, a prisoner of my own territory. Then I realised I am stronger than them and I could decide they left. And so two of them faded out of the window. The third one was wounded and laid down in front of me. That’s when I tended to him, and he became a man.

Playmate

Under the bed I could hardly see the face of the animal. He placed his paw playfully over my legs, I was not in danger: I was his playmate. Then, when he came out of under the bed, he shifted into a man. But I didn’t like him as a man.

I felt his presence in the middle of the crowd, someone with his back towards me. I reached him, the certainty was so strong: we were meeting in the no-space no-time. He joked about it, I couldn’t see how he would look when we met in real life, faces fading in and out. “Please, come find me”, I asked.

I felt his warmth surrounding me, his arms sheltering me like a fortress. Behind those pulsing walls any sense of shame melted away. Because I had been ashamed of showing the fire in me for him..

I saw him standing there through my sleepy eyelids. I knew he couldn’t possibly be there, but feeling his presence was so tempting…

My men is a serie about encounters in lucid dreams or in between states with men, someone I will know, someone I maybe knew and someone I know. This third piece concludes the triptych.

Me

The majestic animal came directly toward me and sat on my hand, his feathered weight felt warm on my palm. After some soft movements I felt a shape even warmer on my hand: an egg with streaks of vibrant colors that were moving, spinning, twisting, creating a visual feast in constant evolution right there, on my hand.

Vision

I was suddenly transported to this city close to the dessert, where a street market was happening. A woman in rugs arrived to one of the stalls and released her cloths: two babies came out from her breasts, that were full of sand.

Sea sisters

In the sea, my two sisters are a little far to my right, they jump together in excitement, trying to swim under the breaking waves, as a challenge. I am not a part of their race against the waves, for me it is easy, not a challenge, so I close my eyes waiting for the waves, their sound getting closer until they pass through me, tickling the skin of my face, never knowing how big the next wave is going to be, feeling no fear of drowning or chocking…trusting its caress.

Cat People

We are waiting there for someone’s secret arrival. We saw him: a man with cat’s arm and head. In this planet it is forbidden for people and cats to be together. He is not coming alone though: a woman-cat is coming with him, as well as a little kitten that plays in the water. The woman lifts the man, she is incredibly strong. We leave our hidden place and enter the frozen water to greet them, the human cats, that’s why we are there. Cat people.

Dark room

I waited in the dark room, full of dark objects. I could hear their voices getting closer and I thought they would find me. I held my breathe: they didn’t.

Dancing darkness

There was a concrete amphitheater, grey clouds sitting heavily on the sky and grey silhouettes sitting on the terraces. I was alone in the arena. I looked down and saw I was wearing my red ballerina shoes, and the grey silhouettes waited for me to start my dance. As I moved, black particles swirled around me. I speeded my dance to kept them away from me but they were getting closer, closer, surrounding me, sticking to my legs, my arms, my chest. As I spinned and turned, faster and faster the darkness was engulfing me with its million particles, until they reached my mouth and with my last breath I screamed: “No!”

Spider

With my eyes closed I allowed the big spider to explore my body, and I felt her powerful legs checking furiously my face, my legs, my arms, trusting she wouldn’t hurt me, not certain she would.

Arm harm, man harm

They didn’t hurt me. Instead, they took the girl and forced her to hurt herself, their own flesh and blood. And I saw her flesh smashed, her blood dripping, the suffering of the innocent, the injustice burning on me.

The chamber

I saw the room, but I didn’t want to see it. I kept walking, the boys stayed in that chamber of torture and suffering beyond horror. And with my silence and cowardice, I condemned them to the certainty of an agonic death. Butchered, blood, fear, eating flesh, nausea, tears. I am so sorry. Please, forgive me.

Tachycard

Life escapes through my chest stomping violently in everything on its way, a soldier with iron boots ripping through my red silk walls.

Dissolved in particles

The place I was in was not in this world, there was peace and joy inside me like I had never experienced before. I wanted to stay, I wanted to stay even if that meant I would have died in the normal world. But my dark-haired companion said: “It is not up to you to decide”. And before he took me to the lift, I turned upside down and experienced myself in my millions or particles.

Abyss

The emptiness of the space lies in the middle of my chest, a weightless pressure, a great nothingness between beats, the universe losing its pulse, stretching the vacuum in between times, smothering gravity... As above to below.

Flowers grew out of my hair

The feeling was weird: they were not horns but still they were hard and had an irregular shape. My head upside down, my hair reaching to the ground, with the tips of my fingers I finally saw flowered branches growing out of my hair.

I once asked someone in a dream:

“Are you also dreaming right now?"

Someone else's words about my work

Dreams are not easily remembered, it takes practice and determination.

Usually, we forget the dreams of the night before simply by moving in or when getting out of bed, even if we wish we could remember them.

Otilia has mastered the capture of these intangible moments, and is giving us a chance to explore her own night visions which are poetic, to say the least.

Otilia’s work expresses diverse creative powers through contemporary and avant-garde art practices, that traverse visual, performative, and new media subversions and innovations.

Her dream works are potent and visually arresting. Quirky and surreal, beautiful and seductive, these images have been swimming together in the creative consciousness of a talented and humble artist. Thank-you Otilia for setting them free.

Gudrita Lape - Artist

Kerryn McMurdo. Dancer and Permormer

I went deep into thought until her Alchemy invaded me. I was moved by the deep feeling that all her demons were looking for their own identity. Dermapsychological Alchemy is all my eyes perceive, a great wave of dystopias that howl madly and intertwine with their most Sensory Virtual Utopias.

I know, it's not easy to recognize oneself in these little creatures....they already have an owner. And they fight to survive in a space-time that has already become obsolete.

Otilia Martín's work conveys a more than Healthy and Consequent Transmutation...deserving to be caressed by ways of looking that leave behind everything destined to become dreams lost in memories, harbinger of an exciting liberating rescue.

There is something about Martin’s work that strikes us as an arrow. That ‘something’ being the universal language of symbols.

Surrealism is not for the weak. Within the uncanny of the unspoken there is an exposed vulnerability made visible through the multi layers of digital images and meaning. As viewers we are revealed the insides of someone’s soul only to realise there’s something of our own in it too.

Not only the language of symbols is mastered by Martin but also that of poetry. It is that murmur released in the images that attract us to them like those of Odysseus’ sirens: even though we would like to run away we find ourself getting closer to them with a wide-open heart.

Ana Escobar - Artist and Curator

Juanma Vidal - Artist

Otilia Martin Gonzalez is a Spanish artist and designer born in Germany and based in Reykjavik. With an education in visual communication and an interest in symbology, her art practise evolves around the unconscious mind, dreams and their visual symbolic language. Simple objects become symbols that convey in striking ways moods, emotions and situations that open the path for playful self knowledge and curious exploration.

Monsters, dreams, psychology and magic are intertwined in her work. She has exhibited in Spain, Japan, Romania, UK, Finland and Italy, and won Vazquez Diaz Awards (Spain).