CREATION SERIES:
This series was inspired by two observations; the first being that there are two versions of the creation story in Genesis and the second that everything in the Universe is energy and has a vibration. Through the exploration of light, colour, form and the human figure as explained in the Creation story in the Bible and drawing on the ancient art of alchemy as well as Jungian psychology and quantum mechanics I have created images that demonstrate the healthy balanced male and female.
In the first version of the Creation story, "God created the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." In the second version that most of us are familiar with, God created Eve from Adam's rib as a helpmate and companion to him. Eve then ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge knowing Good and Evil. God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and as punishment God said to woman "I will multiply your pains in childbearing you shall give birth to your children in pain. Your yearning shall be for your husband yet he will lord it over you." To the Man he said, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat 'Accursed be the soil because of you. With suffering shall you get your food from it every day of your life shall yield you brambles and thistles. And you shall eat wild plants. With sweat on your brow shall you eat your bread, until you return,to the soil, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return. "The second version of Creation, is the most taught and strongest belief system of the Christian/Judeo tradition.
I am challenging this belief system that we do not have to accept this version as the truth about who we are. We have a choice. The battle of the sexes - the belief that we are sinners and the battle of light and dark good and evil only make clear our choices. It is through a decision to choose the light by confronting and healing the shadow part of ourselves that transforms us into magical beings. If we embrace the first version of Creation that we are co-creators with God our own choices and our own intentions create our reality. We are light energy and whatever we think, speak and do becomes our reality. We are not condemned to live in pain and die in pain as the second version tells us is our reality. Duality. darkness. pain, the Shadow or whatever name you want to use to call the part of us that is not healed is a teacher only and not our fate.
Through my paintings I have explored that we are magnificent light beings that have choice to create a life connected to the energy of our planet Earth and the Universe. When we choose to connect to Spirit or the Universal iife Force we are capable of creating a life of joy and beauty. Our life force energy is also connected to our sexual energy and I have presented images of sexuality that represent our sacred feminine and masculine energies. Sexuality and the birthing process engaged in through ceremony and with the intention to create beauty is our birthright. New doors and opportunities are opening at this time to look again at ourselves as cocreators with Spirit and it is up to each one of us what we choose. Are we going to choose to align with the energy of Grandfather Sun and Grandmother Earth the Stars and the Planets as well as the elements and energies that make up ourselves: water, earth, air, fire and our sexual Life force energy or will we choose to sink into the depth of our shadow and self-destruct?
My paintings are an exploration of the journey our spirits take to remember that we are light beings and creators and that when we align wirh Universal Spirit and all of its different energies we are capable of creating a world of beauty in harmony with others and our planet Earth. The exploration of feminine and masculine energies and aligning to our sacred and balanced energies results in the creation of a world of sensual beauty and dignity. This is the world I choose to live in.
What do you choose?
DUALITY SERIES:
I have chosen to examine the issue of Duality and the human desire to worship a God and to connect to energies outside of ourselves. It is my intention as an artist to explore the nature of energy through science, psychology, spirituality and painting. I have drawn on Jungian psychology and quantum mechanics to search for the connection of human energy to universal energy. Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. We are human energy systems and our energy is expressed through our sexuality and our creativity that is directly linked to our spirituality. The resolution of our duality ultimately leads us to Spirit.
We are now aware throguh the arts and science of the dual nature of the individual and the collective unconsciousness and of the powerful creative and destructive forces of the Universe. The dual nature of the unconscious in now calling for individual consciousness that will result in the conscious reunion of our inward reality and the reality of the world - a new union of body, mind and soul. This union will require the understanding of new forms of energy to fuel and increasingly complex world. Quantum mechanics has shown us that we are both matter and wave and that we possess tremendous creative and destructive energy. Splitting the atom has released tremendous destructive energy - splitting the psyche can also result in destructive behaviour. The conscious understanding of our inherent duality is the first step to self-awareness and integration of our dual energies to achieve the whole, balanced, healthy individual.
My series of paintings on Duality explores duality and fragmentation as dynamics of learning. The dark shows us the light. A splintered personality searchs to become whole.
In "What are You Reading" I have collaged images into disctinct compartments and by fragmenting the body I have emphasized the separation of mind and body that takes place when the body is sexualized and integrated with sacred images of the masculine and the feminine. I am challenging the viewer to bring to mind the issues of power and sexual imagery in a mass consumer society. In my painting I am presenting a reflection that we as a consumer society continue to present splintered images of ourselves, disconnect from our spirit and our true nature.
"Alchemy" shows the split beween min, body and spirit and the pain that it causes to the Human Spirit. This pain of separation causes one to look for answers and to turn towards God and prayer to find answers to health and wholeness.
"Exhorations to the Universe" show the split between lust and love, the lower self from the higher self. The left side of the canvas symbolizing lust and the lower self painted with the colours of the lower chakras, red, orange and yellow. The right side of the canvas symbolizing the higher self is painted in the colours of the higher chakras, blue, indigo and violet. The woman is naked yet wearing glove and boots disconnected from her heart, her Spirit and her own nature as symbolized by the flowers. She is praying to God to help her resolve her inner demons and her nature as a sexual being. She is striving to reconnect her sexuality back to Spirit and the sacred Feminine in stark comparison to the sexualized and pornographic images that are proliferating in mass media.
"The Blue Ballet Dancer" with the image of a split face and haeavy unrealistic shadows challenges us to look at our Shadow. In the painting "The Red Corse, The Green Corset" I have again split the canvas in half to represpent duality and created the mirror image of a woman dressed in a corset, an item of clothing that is highly sexually charged, looking at herslef in the mirror. I have used strong curved and straight lines, simplified shapes and defined the flesh by flat patches of colour to emphasize the two dimensinality of the painting thus symbolically representing sexual duality. To further empahasize the concept of good and bad, the virgin and the whore, the married woman and the fallen woman, I used the biblical connotation that the right side represents good and left represents bad derived from the belief that Lucifer sat on God's left side. The word sinister is dervived from the Latin word sinistre, meaning left hand. I have painted the right side innatural flesh tones, whle the left side is painted as a photographic negative again empasizing the positive and negative aspects of sexuality and the split in sexual energy. However, the image intself is identical except for the colours. I have used the mirror as a symbol of self-refelctions - the vampire cannot see itself in a mirror and I have split the mirror into white on the right side and black on the left and there is no reflection in either mirror. Self-reflection is impossible when the world is secribed as black or white. This woman however is looking at herself and awakening to her dualize nature and the lessons it teaches.
"Submission" explores the energetic when one sees that their mind, body and soul is split and disconnected within theselves and Spirit yet they continue to submit to it. Experiencing our dual nature and the pain it causes is the first step in the journey to connecting to Sprit and the Sacred Self. Life is a choice and it is through our choices we receive reflections of our true nature as light beings creating our our reality.
Do we choose to create a life of beauty and joy or a life of submission, fragmentation and ultimate destruction?