WATERCOLORS 2003-2014
Work from "Riddles,Visions and Mysteries", "ART is a 4 Letter Word", and watercolors from 2003-14RIDDLES, MYSTERIES AND VISIONS. An artist's search for meaning in life.
We live in a world where every question can be answered by the click of a mouse, where we can visit ancient monuments from the comfort of our armchair, a world where the mysterious has become obsolete. Religion has been fatally corrupted by power and decadence, knowledge has replaced wisdom, and information has become a product in itself. In this world more is better, excess is stylish, and "reality" is more likely to refer to a television program than a personal experience. This is a world where the ephemeral is glorified over the substantial and where meaning is not just hard to find, but is seen as both irrelevant and quaint.
And so I have asked myself "Where do I find meaning in my life and in my art?". Looking back at my work with skulls and thorns in Rituals and Meditations and earlier where I was using fabrics and flowers, I could see myself searching for meaning. This earlier work was characterized by an intensity and vitality expressed most especially through color and pattern, and while I see now that this very vitality was an expression of meaning in itself, at the time this did not feel enough.
This new work began after taking a year's break from painting, in which I created collages inspired by the Fukushima tsunami, which washed my own creative world clean and allowed me to start afresh. Thru my love of African music, such as hi-life and Afro-Beat I was inspired to express rhythm in color and form, and which in then created the basic compositional structure of this new work. My personal obsessions were distilled into abstract symbols and shapes and these replaced the centrality previously held by representation.
Here I share carnal ceremonies, and fierce, rhythmic visions. There are no answers here, only the delirious delights of mysteries and riddles. These paintings offer my private adventures on the stormy seas of the unknown and the unknowable, stories both ancient and modern, siren songs to lure you into experiencing life in all its beauty and power.
