Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome back Indigenous Canadian photographer and digital artist Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier. Longtime readers will remember Karen’s cover for our “Transcend” issue, Stars, which drew on children’s desire to explore, a desire which hopefully lives on into adulthood. The playfulness of her work helps us recall useful things we overlook, suppress or deny. Our subconscious sometimes uses the same tactic in our dreams.
Kiss of a Hummingbird, one of four finalists for the “Dreams” cover contest, is another whimsical digital image with deep undertones, celebrating our connection to nature and the nurturing feminine. A woman’s face smiles knowingly from the center of a flower, growing organically from the stem and flanked by petals. A black mask with white accents, recalling Indigenous battle paint, covers the upper part of her face, drawing our attention to her lively eyes. A hummingbird drinks from her smiling, closed lips, as if she is full of nectar (or inspiration). It is a surreal image with allusions to collage, a medium that allows the conscious mind to create images similar to the subconscious, with its use of symbols and accretion. Karen reminds us that we are part of nature, one of her flowerings, and that we can be in a sustainable relationship with her if we join with her in creative imagining rather than exploiting her. When we grow healthily, nature is enriched and vice versa. Rather than being heavy-handed with her message, Karen pulls the strings of delight.
View Kiss of a Hummingbird in Synkroniciti’s “Dreams” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier is a Stittsville, Ontario Indigenous photographer and writer. Her images are produced intuitively using digital photography, with the intent of creating something unexpected. When she’s not walking her Siberian Husky “Kiowa,” she enjoys creating written and visual works for small press literary magazines. Internationally published, Karen was nominated “Best of the Net” artist for 2024 and 2022. See more on her website at https://www.kcbgphoto.com/.