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The picture plane, the two-dimensional space in which paintings and drawings are created, may be understood as a type of potential space in which the artist comes to life in the process of painting and drawing. Within art's potential space, the artist is able to playfully explore sexuality and gender, freed from the limitations and restrictions imposed by compliance with established conventions and gender stereotypes. Originality and the refusal to comply with established conventions have become criteria by which we measure creativity and thus the stature of creative individuals, including artists.
Paul Klee was one of the most creative and playful artists of the past century. He assumed an unconventional role in his family life, while maintaining a complex relationship with women that included hostility for, admiration of, and identification with the female gender. As an artist, Klee experienced himself as a male/female parent or god in relationship to his creative offspring. It is within this context that I play with the appearance of the name “Anna Wenne” in Klee's art.
Creativity remains a great mystery. No one has been able to objectively identify the origin of creativity or explain the necessary emergent conditions that give rise to it. While we might agree on abstract criteria for what constitutes a creative act, it is our common experience with creativity that allows us to recognize and respond to the creativity of others.
Ogden (2001b) had noted that “the writing of no psychoanalyst