Monica Sjoo

Monica Sjoo, (December 31 1938 – 8 August 2005), was a Swedish painter who died of cancer.

Related Topics:
December 31 - 1938 - 8 August - 2005 - Swedish - Cancer

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Monica Sjoo lost both of her sons in very traumatic ways. Her youngest son was killed in front of her by an oncoming car at age 15. Her eldest son died of cancer. Sjoo has had to work through pain and loneliness.

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In pieces of her art she wished to "holistically express" her growing religious belief in the Great Mother as the cosmic spirit and generative force in the universe. This understanding was critical in comprehending the artwork of was entering into a state of being or mind where knowledge was available from past, present, and future. These abstract beliefs were grounded with a firm foundation of action and activism. She was involved with the anarchist and anti-Vietnam War movements in Sweden in the 1960s and was active in the women's movement in Britain since the beginning. Her political activism always grew out of my spiritual understandings of the earth as the living mother.

Related Topics:
Great Mother - Anarchist - Vietnam War - Sweden - Women's movement

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Sjoo's work and beliefs centred around her respect and care of the Goddess, or mother earth. The Goddess was "the beauty of the green earth, the life-giving waters, the consuming fires, the radiant moon, and the fiery sun". Sjoo's respect for nature and the environment was not just a belief but a spiritual truth. The Goddess/Earth was respected as the life giver. This respect was found not only in her art images, but in two texts which chronicle her journey through the written word.

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The imagery Sjoo used in her paintings often make reference to birth, the female body, and nature. All of these images were central to her beliefs regarding her cosmic mother. She described herself as among the pioneers in this movement - along with many other writers, artists, poets, and thinkers.

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Sjoo was an artist, a writer, one of the early, powerful visionaries of the women?s spirituality movement. Her book, The Great Cosmic Mother, brought the hidden history of the Goddess back alive, and her paintings transformed ancient images and symbols into contemporary icons of female power.

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