Inside Itself is coming up again. In 2011 I did the first series of abstract paintings with this theme. It is an acknowledgment of the Totality. How does one discuss the Totality without making it a thing? Well, that may be a problem in how thought works and therefore how we imagine reality. Language is limited to symbolic representation and therefore we will be triggered to create reality in a certain way. However, I will let that go for the “idea” of the Totality in which everything exists. In that way, whatever we say exists separately, cannot exist outside of this. There is the tendency to focus on the separation, ourselves included. It is hard to be Humanity rather than an individual person within humanity. It is hard to imagine the body extending into the biosphere, as the container of the skin is neater and creates a convenient barrier, a definition of “my” being. That may also be something of a model for what I am referring to by Inside Itself. The body holds all the organs and processes that make it function. But then when we start to consider the air, gravity, the sun, plants, and the social connections that we need to survive, we see that we are in a larger territory - a planetary whole. And even there it doesn’t take long to see the influence of the rotation of the planet around the sun and the pull of the moon on the earth to see that Earth could not exist without these outside elements that not only impact its functioning, but that gives it a larger context to its being. We know so little beyond that - at least I do. But enough to know that this nesting doll metaphor seems to go on and on, much bigger than our comprehension. And I can admit, that it may be a misinterpretation, with great limitations, that doesn’t take in some other aspect and way of seeing the Totality.
In the drawing that I have just completed, there are people in a group, with light behind them and long shadows in front. They are all looking toward their shadows. The shadows correspond to their shapes and in that way confirm for them their individual being. This can be seen to be a reference to Plato’s Cave, as they seem to be unaware of the light behind and are caught in the darkness of the shadows. However some do seem aware of the light and the way the light is creating the shadow. The central character is able to inhabit both the light and the shadow as a unified, acknowledged realm. There is lightness and happiness to her pose and a gesture of revelation. It is a wake-up pose, look at this! It is a religious pose, something that proclaims a sacred space.
At the same time, this light is behind them, it also appears to carry over into the foreground. It is integrated through concentric circles and diagonal rays throughout the composition and intersects with the humans and their shadows. There is a foreground plane in which this circular pattern takes over. This is where the idea of the Totality comes in. This pattern suggests a larger force, perhaps the Sacred in which and from which these people exist. The light and shadow are also within this more encompassing presence. It could be that it is not so much that something is within something else, but that it is contiguous, intermingled, not to be taken apart. I am thinking of atoms. One cannot say that there are atoms and molecules just within my body. The basic units are everywhere, not confined, not inside and outside, but somehow making everything possible. Maybe this is totally wrong as a scientific explanation, and I will have to look for a new metaphor. For now anyway.
I was just thinking about how strange it is to make up these ways of understanding the world we live in and then offer that interpretation to other people. They may not really care or understand, but my interpretation may overlap somewhat with their own and there may be some correspondence. We are always looking for corroboration to what it means to be human, to be in Life. We may accept what we have been told and what seems to agree with the general consensus. But then there are things that are not said, that are not discussed and that there may be no answers for. We are still looking, still questioning.
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