Everything AND Nothing, 2012, charcoal, pastel, acrylic, ink, paper cutouts and paper mache mask on paper
Two weeks to go until I install my show at loop gallery. I continue to struggle with the nagging obligation of writing an artist's statement and preparing for an artist's talk.
Here's the thing. I make art (drawing, painting, sculpture, digital imagery) to explore the world that lives just beyond the boundary of words, the ineffable, I suppose. It's not that I don't like to write, because I do. It just feels wrong to have to explain in words what needs to be expressed in images. It's like making a really tasty meal, and instead of eating it, you're given the recipe to read.
The show probably should be called Everything and Nothingness, but I didn't want to get too deeply into the Buddhist doctrine of nothingness.
There's very little about my work that is overtly Buddhist. However, at the core of these drawings is the paradox that is stated in The Heart Sutra;
form is emptiness, emptiness is form
If you click on (this red) Heart Sutra you can read the full text. The paradox cannot be understood in any logical way. It must be experienced through meditation and devotional practice. Having said that, here's my superficial understanding of the Sutra. All form arises out of the limitless void (nothingness). They have relative meaning depending on what co-arises with it, but, ultimately, has no inherent meaning. All forms rise, dissolve, only to rise again as another form. Not sure if any of that comes through in the drawings, but it's there, lurking between the lines.
Another Buddhist concept that informs my work is that of Interconnectedness. I am especially interested in the notion of life unfolding simultaneously in many dimensions. These drawings are teaming with figures, images, beings, activities, cells, words, shapes... interdependently co-arising and dissolving. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
OK, so I'm starting to see the value in writing about art. It's like taking a lump of wet clay (thoughts) and forming them into some semblance of structure (meaning).
Here's the thing. I make art (drawing, painting, sculpture, digital imagery) to explore the world that lives just beyond the boundary of words, the ineffable, I suppose. It's not that I don't like to write, because I do. It just feels wrong to have to explain in words what needs to be expressed in images. It's like making a really tasty meal, and instead of eating it, you're given the recipe to read.
The show probably should be called Everything and Nothingness, but I didn't want to get too deeply into the Buddhist doctrine of nothingness.
There's very little about my work that is overtly Buddhist. However, at the core of these drawings is the paradox that is stated in The Heart Sutra;
form is emptiness, emptiness is form
If you click on (this red) Heart Sutra you can read the full text. The paradox cannot be understood in any logical way. It must be experienced through meditation and devotional practice. Having said that, here's my superficial understanding of the Sutra. All form arises out of the limitless void (nothingness). They have relative meaning depending on what co-arises with it, but, ultimately, has no inherent meaning. All forms rise, dissolve, only to rise again as another form. Not sure if any of that comes through in the drawings, but it's there, lurking between the lines.
Another Buddhist concept that informs my work is that of Interconnectedness. I am especially interested in the notion of life unfolding simultaneously in many dimensions. These drawings are teaming with figures, images, beings, activities, cells, words, shapes... interdependently co-arising and dissolving. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
OK, so I'm starting to see the value in writing about art. It's like taking a lump of wet clay (thoughts) and forming them into some semblance of structure (meaning).
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