Goddess of Love, Under the Sea
The painting that I created for this years summit is entitled ‘Goddess of Love, Under the Sea’. It is directly inspired by Kai Cheng Thom’s riveting creation myth about the origin of love. I found Kai Cheng’s talk to be interesting in general, but I was particularly enthralled and amazed at her incredible storytelling abilities, so much so that I could actually vividly see the story illustrated in my mind’s eye. I was particularly taken by the part where the Goddess of Love is asleep in her garden under the sea and the Sun God and Moon Goddess being jealous of how she has infected the human race have come down to put a stop to her reign of Love. The Moon Goddess puts her to sleep with her vile of tears and then the Sun God comes down and rips her to pieces. This to me was a shocking metaphor for global warming. They then spread her pieces all over the earth until she becomes one with the plants and the animals. That‘s why nature is so full of love and we, as humans, are always looking for it. Nature is the source and we have destroyed the majority of it. There are very few truly natural places left in this world and the hearts of many human beings are cold with apathy. Kai Cheng‘s story was a perfect metaphor for our current state of being and the pure simplicity of the solution to all our problems which has always been and will always be love. And this doesn’t have to mean romantic love by any means. Love of nature, love of animals, love of children, love of women, of queers, of people of all colours, of mothers, and family and weirdos and outcasts. There is so much love that we desperately need right now. And so, I illustrated the moment where the Moon Goddess was pouring her vile of tears into the Goddess of Love’s mouth in her garden under the sea as the vengeful sun god (aka the patriarchy) comes down to destroy her and rip her to shreds.
Shannon Lester
My name is Shannon Lester aka Sasha Zamolodchikova and I am a visual artist and drag performer. I am genderqueer and have no preferred pronouns (he/she/they are all fine by me). I work primarily in acrylic on canvas, and I am very much inspired by the human experience as it relates to nature.
In the past my work has explored social constructs relating to gender and sexuality and while I continue to explore these topics, I have expanded to include a dialogue about our current global environmental crisis. I am particularly interested in how we, as a human race, have seemed to stop caring about important topics such as animal rights and nature conservation while we continue to rage on with discussions and debates about human rights and identity. We are now emerging from a nearly two-year global pandemic that in my opinion is very much connected to our destruction of the natural world. I received my MFA in Interdisciplinary Painting and Drag Performance in 2013 from UBC-O. I am currently based in Kelowna on the unceded territory of the Syilx people.