Carol Knowlton-Dority

Swimming Bunny is part of my ongoing body of work, Picturing the Self, which explores how symbols carry meaning across time, culture, and personal experience.
The rabbit has appeared in myth, folklore, and spiritual traditions throughout the world — associated with fertility, intuition, sacrifice, and the moon. Often seen at dawn or dusk, it embodies liminality, the in-between space where transformation and insight arise.
In his writings, C. G. Jung reminds us that symbols speak most powerfully when we attend to what personally resonates. For me, the rabbit holds qualities of sensitivity and instinct, yet also adaptability and quiet resilience. In Swimming Bunny, the figure inhabits two elements — water and earth — suggesting an ability to move fluidly between realms.
This painting invites viewers to step beyond purely rational ways of knowing, and instead to engage their own intuition and imagination. Just as the rabbit emerges unexpectedly, the work gestures toward the unseen dimensions of experience, where cultural symbolism and personal reflection meet.
Swimming Bunny becomes both playful and profound: a reminder that wisdom often appears in subtle, mercurial forms, and that adaptation, like intuition, is part of our shared human journey.