Deities

Deities is a series of photographs taken in the Libyan Desert earlier this year. Specifically, Wingfield travelled to the Western Desert, a part of the Libyan Desert that meets the River Nile in the east and Libya to the west. Due to security issues, the Western Desert is now a military zone, making access very difficult and as a result very few Egyptians travel there. However, the desert has been an undeniable geographical and cultural force in the region. According to the Ancient Egyptians, the desert was a live entity where Gods resided. The God Ha was the God of the Western Desert in particular. He was closely associated with a more important God, Seth, the God of the Red Land, comprising the deserts on either side of the Nile. These deserts were seen as repositories of sacred objects. Semi-precious stones and minerals found there were believed to be exudations from the celestial Goddess Hathor, “the eye” of the Sun God Ra. Ancient Egyptians even believed that when they sculpted out of stone, they were simply “releasing” existing statues that had begun their lives in the vast deserts of Egypt.

Rather than being carved by hand, Wingfield’s Deities were sculpted by nature. The processes of weathering, freezing, thawing and erosion have “released” these monumental “sculptures of Gods.” Like a sculptor, Wingfield sees shapes and textures that are often overlooked; and she imbues her photographs with a distinct three-dimensionality. In fact, light bounces around her images as if it were moving through a three-dimensional space. It takes on a life of its own, dancing between the cracks and unveiling hidden angles. Wingfield says her practice is “a kind of pas de deux with light,” an unravelling of a “choreography with light.” “When travelling to deserts I feel that a spaciousness has been carved into my soul.” Wingfield’s use of the word “carved” embodies the sculptural quality that pervades her work. Brought to life by the elements, Deities inhabit this numinous landscape as if guarding a pathway to communicate with the divine.

There is no reference to any human presence in Wingfield’s photographs which is intentional. She wants to “go back to what was here before we humans appeared. All these places were here long before us.” In these uncorrupted spaces, she invites us to transcend the limitations of being human and “connect to our inner world.” As Terry Tempest Williams said, “Every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide and so we are found.” For Wingfield, the silence of the desert is not about the absence of sound; it is about reconnecting with one’s inner music. Indeed, many of her photographs are a dialogue with a particular piece of music. Wingfield’s intention is to induce a discovery and sensory experience through her photographs that actives more than just the eyes; and more, even, than the five senses. Her photographs seek to animate the soul.