Pop Art meets Pop Psychology: Jung & Bowie Pop : Art : Rock Mannequins

When Carl Jung was boy, the young Jung once carved a tiny wooden mannequin he kept secreted away with a sacred stone enclosed in a small timber box.

As a man, he came to believe his compulsion to create the mannequin emerged from the creative depths of his psyche, a clothonic, cabiri-esque figure from underground, foreshadowing his later interests in the unconscious.

Maybe so.

Mannequins undoubtedly carry an archtypal charge. Which is perhaps why Bowie, a lifelong student of Jung was also so fascinated with the symbolism around mannequins and masks that is woven through the cascading personas he embodied through his own creative explorations of the personal and collective psyche.

I tend to work with a primarily organic / metallic pallette in my creative practice around my explorations in suburban gothic and the sublime divine. Once, as a creative challenge I decided my art studio mannequins were ripe for deliciously glam transformation into audaciously creative personas of some of my favourite artists – those who dance with the muse till their feet bleed, or she begs for mercy or…more.

Bowie was the obvious first choice. Moustachied Grinderman era Nick Cave, and David Lynch would follow.

Since 2010 my miniature dopplegangers have been collected by some of the most interesting people across the world, exhibited in a shows including the Pop Art : Pop Psychology exhibitions in Brisbane, as part of a larger exhibition of popular culture and music ephemera I curated as Artist in Residence at University of Limerick Popular Music Symposium in Ireland supported by Arts Queensland, and at a series of lectures and keynotes including ACMI and the Melbourne Jung Society.

A series of these limited edition Bowie Pop : Art : Rock Mannequins was also commissioned by Isolar/Bowie in 2011 and is now held in the Bowie Archive in New York. Like Jung’s little figure, these too, live in their own wooden box.

[UPDATE 2025: They are now in London as part of the V&A Museums Bowie Archive, the Diamond Dogs /Halloween Jack mannequin included in the inagural display].

I snapped this image of my Screaming Lord Byron Art Rock Mannequin on the firestairs of the apartment I was staying in on Mulberry Street in New York in 2011, above the late John Gotti’s infamous Ravenite Social Club.

I had randomly arranged to stay in New York for a creative writers sojourn through film director Lenny Abrahamson and his sister Emily, without knowing the address. I discovered a year later Bowie and Iman’s apartment was reflected in my shoe. I never had an inkling at the time. A very curious image, in retrospect…much like the man himself.