Artist Statement

Overall, my paintings are a marriage of William Blake and Ann Landers.

More specifically, my current paintings come out of a feeling I've had since
I was a child that there is so much more to being a girl than is talked about or 
understood. I recently learned that Gyrle or Gurle were the spellings for girl back in the 1300's, but the word meant a young child of either gender.

I titled my recent show at Solo Gallery in San Pedro, CA: "GYRLE," not to push for women being more like men, not about gender at all, but because so much is unrecognized about being a gyrle.  I want to show that, to open that up.

There is a passage in Genesis that reads, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a suitable helper.”

God would have made this companion from available materials, but I think it must have taken a while, maybe years, for God and Adam to agree on a form for this “suitable helper.”

My paintings in this series show those gyrle experiments that, at the time, did not make the cut, but which eventually were certified as gyrles (along with the one made of Adam's rib).

We, or course, are descended from ALL these gyrles.

                                                                                 Peggy Reavey 04/03/2026