Dream Art

Taveras is an award-winning sculptor of what she calls "Dream Art." She has a special interest in the unconscious sources of creativity. She explores these sources in an intimately personal way, using images from her own dreams to create sculptures that illustrate the process of psychic transformation. These are archetypal images from what C.G. Jung calls the "collective unconscious."

Maria Taveras with her "Dream Art" paintings and sculptures at the 2007 conference of the International Association for Analytical Psychology in Cape Town, South Africa.

In the early 1990s Taveras had a series of dreams after visiting the C.G. Jung Institute of Zurich. When she returned to New York City, she had several "single image dreams." In one of those dreams, a voice told her to sculpt her dream images.

Her sculptures feature dream images of the emergent feminine. They also often include dream images of serpents, some of them with wings.

When Taveras sculpts her dream images, she experiences what she calls "interactive morphing," which is similar to what Jung calls "active imagination." This is a dialogue between the ego and the unconscious and between psyche and matter. It is a kinetic conversation that is mental, verbal, visual, tactile, and visceral. When she interacts with her dream images, they "morph," until they ultimately materialize as sculptures.

Her sculpture "Transformation of the Feminine" won a 2004 Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis. Her sculptures have been exhibited at the 2005 conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams in Berkeley, California, and at the 2006 conference of the International Association for Jungian Studies in London.

Taveras also paints her dream images. Her paintings have been exhibited with her sculptures at the 2007 conference of the International Association for Analytical Psychology in Cape Town, South Africa.

Maria Taveras, L.C.S.W.
Certified Jungian Analyst
C.G. Jung Institute of New York
Telephone: (212) 683-7253
E-Mail: mdtaveras (at) hotmail (dot) com