Date of Award

10-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Art in Art History and Visual Culture

First Advisor

Jonathan Frederick Walz

Second Advisor

Stefanie Snider

Third Advisor

Trenton Olsen

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the inherent feminism in alchemical and magical symbolism, particularly in representations of kitchens in the art and writing of Leonora Carrington. The kitchen has historically been viewed as a gendered space for domestic work. By subverting cultural and religious conventions, Carrington’s kitchen becomes a site for transmutation and feminine ritual. Using feminist discourse, formal art historical analysis, and the history of alchemical symbolism, this thesis asserts that Carrington’s imagery transforms the kitchen from an oppressive domestic space to a mystical laboratory of feminine power. A thorough analysis of Grandmother Moorhead’s Aromatic Kitchen (1975) and The House Opposite (1945), as well as the latter’s associated literary work of the same name, will establish the methods Carrington uses to reconstruct the kitchen and culinary imagery into emblems of the alchemical process and feminine power. Carrington blurs the line between the sacred and mundane by turning the kitchen into an other-worldly space and transforming the domestic into the mystical. By placing Carrington’s kitchen imagery into feminist and alchemical discourse, this thesis adds to the current conversations regarding surrealism and feminism. This study argues that Carrington remodels the gendered domestic sphere into a space in which women’s work is re-evaluated as spiritually powerful.

Research Highlights

  • The Problem: Traditional art historical and feminist discourse often views the kitchen as an oppressive, gendered domestic space, overlooking its potential as a site for spiritual power and alchemical transformation in the work of Leonora Carrington. 

  • The Method: This thesis utilizes a multi-disciplinary framework involving feminist discourse, formal art historical analysis, and the history of alchemical and esoteric symbolism to analyze Carrington’s paintings The House Opposite (1945) and Grandmother Moorhead’s Aromatic Kitchen (1975). 

  • Qualitative Finding: Carrington subverts domesticity by transforming the kitchen into a mystical laboratory where cooking acts as a ritual for feminine empowerment; she bridges the sacred and mundane by using culinary imagery as an analogue for alchemical processes like distillation and transmutation; her work re-evaluates women's domestic labor as a spiritually powerful and subversive act of resistance. 

  •  Finding: The spatial organization and iconography in Carrington’s work draw direct lineage from Renaissance religious compositions, such as those by Fra Angelico and Sassetta, which she then remodels to incorporate Celtic mythology, Mexican spiritual syncretism, and her own personal occult symbolism.

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