Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes of the Wild Woman as an instinctual force. In Women Who Run With the Wolves, she describes a knowing that is not learned but recovered. To run with wolves is not an act of escape, but of return to instinct. This exhibition begins in that terrain: where wonder stirs in the mind and wander takes hold of the body.
Upon stepping into Tatiana Defraine’s exhibition, Glisser guides us into a state of rest: a soft sleep, a petite mort. Mouths open, breath deepens, and the viewer is invited to join the ride. Defraine transmutes her quests into paint, opening a doorway to sublimation. This act becomes the escape of the soul. Wonder does not speak; it remains silent, waiting for lost words, or for those yet to be born through the spectator’s lens.
Defraine’s universe unfolds as a psychological passage, a descent into loss of control. Claustrophobic figures, traced by lipstick-like oil pastel textures and immersed in fluid blues and greens, stretch across large canvases, extending and enveloping. Wolves appear in multiplicity, at once threatening and guiding. They embody fear, yet are not separate from the self. To run with the wolves, one must become one. The unknown ceases to be an enemy and becomes a guide. Fear is inevitable, but no longer paralyzing. The artist is pursued, and simultaneously liberated.
Echoing the archetype of La Loba, The Wolf Woman does not command the pack from a distance; she is the wolf herself. The beast is what is truly natural. The question is not how to suppress it, but how to invite it in and cultivate it. Transformation becomes central. As motherhood reshaped Defraine’s life with new balance and perception, the body adapts like a circus performer navigating trapezes, fire rings, and galloping animals. Risk, precision, and surrender coexist. The performer is watched while performing, just as the painter presents a new body of work.
Once we understand that the wolf pack is guiding us, we can wonder. Emily Dickinson reminds us that we are always in danger of magic. Is this sensation a lucid dream? A regression into a past life? Or a vision offering a passage into a new one?
–Delfina Pattacini
