Mystic, feminine and erotic: the power of Penny Slinger’s bodies as landscape

UK-born, California-based Penny Slinger vividly brings to life the hazy hinterland between women’s sexuality, mysticism and mythology, emphatically emphasising a feminine strength across works that span photography, sculpture and video.

Slinger has drawn from constants – her body, nature, landscape – throughout her career, translating the feminine into surreal collages and photographs. It is a foundation she is building on now in a Santa Monica exhibition, ‘Meeting at the Horizon’ (until 5 July 2025), which unites Slinger with fellow artists Derek Boshier and Philip Vaughan in a collective consideration of the potential of the horizon.

It marks the first showing of Slinger’s Women of the Rocks series, works in which the female body is immersed in the Utah landscape, becoming one with its ancient, geological surroundings. ‘All the images combine just two elements, the naked female form and the photographs of the rocks and mountains,’ says Slinger. ‘I felt that this simple elegance managed to capture and illustrate the deeply rooted relationship between nature and the feminine. In our modern world, we have lost touch with that deeply embedded bond, and I wanted to resurrect it, bring it back to life, with all its nuance and emotive power of resonance.’

The idea was born during the pandemic, after which Slinger and her partner took a trip to Utah to experience the natural wonders of Bryce and Zion National Parks. ‘It was my way of reconnecting with the expanse of nature after being shut in for so long. Interestingly enough, I realised afterwards that this dynamic mirrored the 1970s shift from the confines of the mansion that is the setting for my collage series An Exorcism to my next project, Mountain Ecstasy. When I returned to my LA loft, I photographed several of my model friends and, making collages of these photos combined with the mountainscapes, created the series Women of the Rocks.’

The photographs are gently subversive, blending the body – almost, but not quite – seamlessly into the bleached landscape around it. Outlines and features are glimpsed amongst the rocks or buried in the ground, a woman’s primal nature at one in free, open terrain.

‘I have incorporated the mystical with the physical in my practice for a long time. I have always felt that the rising of the feminine was deeply intertwined with the understanding of spirituality being an embodied experience. In these centuries of dominant patriarchy, flesh and spirit have been separated, resulting in feelings of shame and degradation towards the body and disconnection from the body of nature. When I discovered the path of Tantra back in the 1970s, it was a revelation because it incorporated sensuality and sexuality into its spiritual practice and presented the body as a temple of the spirit. Embracing this path gave me so much permission to express the things I felt intuitively.’

Here, Slinger is keen to enhance the physicality of the experience, presenting the images alongside ambient sounds, evocative music and her poetry. ‘The enjoyment I derive from making images that depict these lost and now refound alliances is the kind of pleasure one gets from coming home to a place that feels real, tangible and plumbs a sensuality that is our birthright. All of nature exists in a symphony of ecstatic play and we are part of it, embedded and sentient. Through these works, I wanted to convey the flavour of this emotional and blissful landscape of mystic union.’

‘Meeting at the Horizon’ is until 5 July 2025 at ALOV Art, Santa Monica