Art and Design Profile No 56Nov/Dec 1997

"Sci-Fi AESTHETICS"

ELIZABETH   D.Y.N. Soul Surgery

"The importance of appearance is a curiously neglected aspect of human psychology. While the history of fashion is itself a testament to human insecurity, vanity and need the psychologist has exhibited a greater fascination about what lies behind the visible and perhaps has missed an opportunity..." (Professor Anthony Clare)

Elizabeth D.Y.N. is a mother, artist and writer who has committed her life to help others. During the past ten years she has shaped her natural face into a living sculpture, a project involving more than 20 operations.Her goal is to complete by the end of the millennium an extraordinary, futuristic face that will give her greater inner strength and spirituality.

Once it is finished she will begin a series of charitable works. She also aims to use THE FACE to create a new culture within the fashion industry by pioneering a new form of modelling whose main objective is to enhance the clothes by expressing the beauty of the model's soul. Catwalk models would therefore be socially responsible, capable of expressing a new lifestyle through positive behaviour.

At the beginning of the project, she had no clear vision of how THE FACE would finally look, a situation leading to a large number of unnecessary operations that could have been avoided had she understood the surgical processes more clearly and been able to defend her intentions to the cosmetic surgeons.Now her vision of THE FACE is that it should be without wrinkles, ethereal, delicate, almost angelic. This youthfulness will express her personality in a spiritual way, inspiring confidence in others that they too can remain young.

Its overall geometry is based on an equilateral triangle running between the eyes and the mouth with a small, short and softly rounded chin. The eyes are strongly sliced upwards with a very short and concave nose. The mouth balances the other features with lips that are soft and feminine without the use of collagen.Her search for THE FACE challenges the normal expectations of cosmetic surgery: the operations are more than a physical reconfiguration of the body, they act as a tool for self-development.

Believing that beauty is part of the process of healing, Elizabeth has altruistic motives for spreading her message but acknowledges that not all women are at a suitable point in their own journeys of self discovery to use the same techniques.

She hopes THE FACE will launch her as a businesswoman and an artist, enabling her videos and counselling service to spread her message about the true meaning of beauty, nutritional health, tolerance, and the status of the ageing body.

Though she believes that we should resist the pressure put upon us by society to remain 'forever thirty' it is also her opinion that it is possible to keep the body and the face in a state of perpetual youthfulness if we pay attention to inner harmony, nutrition, flexibility and natural bodily hygiene.

Plastic surgery may be used as a delaying tactic to postpone the signs of ageing but without inner growth, the erasure of these stigmata is merely an assault on one's dignity.Elizabeth models herself on the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Believing that there was only one Being - Aten - Nefertiti made it her mission to change the direction of a whole culture, moving the seat of high power, held by an old and very strong priesthood, to a new place, which led to alterations in many cultural and social habits.

Elizabeth dreamt that she was in the body of Nefertiti, able to see the events that were going on around her, but powerless to intervene because her soul and body had been separated. When she awoke she began to contemplate reincarnation and understood that the soul has a long past and future. (The pseudonym 'D.Y.N.' is a composite of the initials of her names in the past lives). Reflecting on the parallels between the role of Nefertiti and her own ambitions, she decided on an approach that would use her creativity in combination with the tools of communication to show others how to evaluate and change their lives.

She believes that we are here on Earth to dissolve the restricting bonds that prevent us from developing our consciousness. The more we can help others to free themselves too, the more liberated our individual spirit becomes. If in any lifetime we neglect to sever the negative influences, we will have to continue to work on our development in another bodily form in the future. It is therefore an integral part of Elizabeth's development to be actively involved in projects that benefit others.

Currently, she is helping women wishing to have cosmetic surgery to find doctors who understand their wishes.Elizabeth sees herself as a pioneer of a new culture of people who are ready to take full responsibility for their choices and are adventurous enough to use modern techniques such as cosmetic surgery as a tool to express themselves. She believes that these techniques are literally able to stitch together the body and soul to create completely united individuals who are in touch with their inner and outer identities - a kind of surgery of the soul.
(Dr. Rachel Armstrong)