The act of springing free from the past, from the comfortable, from as if from the tangible into the unknown. That is the risk creative people take every day. That is the constant act of courage to create anything new.
It’s the act of passing from one state to another. Leaping into a new reality.
Among the many practices I find interesting is numerology. I was once told I am a number 8 - able to see both sides of the story, able to see balance, confident that patience will be rewarded.
My work explores illusion to discover the underlying truth. The archetype. The quality or experience that connects us rather than divides us.
“Revelation” is a statement about the realization of the truth. When disinformation or projected beliefs are eliminated, what’s left is that incredible “ah-ha” moment when everything is seen with fresh eyes.
Science historian, author, and television producer James Burke, in his series “The Day the Universe Changed” offered countless examples of how society’s view of the universe has been impacted by revelations. What we perceive as true is an illusion held together by current knowledge which can be overturned by scientific proof and/or direct experience. How the truth is revealed is not my point. When the veils of misinformation, political agendas, or any other form of illusion are pulled aside, what remains is undeniable. It can be unsettling, destabilizing and disruptive.
The truth shifts balance from what we once believed to what we now know.
Symbolism, according to art historians, was a movement that began around 1880 and ended in the 1920s. If you are into boundaries and barriers, that definition works just fine. I’m not. It doesn’t.
As opposed to Impressionism, with its commitment to the reality of the surface, Symbolism was a more holistic view as an artistic and a literary movement. It suggested ideas through symbols and emphasized the meaning behind the forms. Symbolism was a precursor of modernism. It developed fresh, abstract expression of psychological truth suggesting that behind the physical world lay a spiritual reality. Symbolists could take the ineffable, such as a dream or vision, and give it form.
“Underlying Truth” is about illusion – What we believe. What we see. And how that eclipses the foundational truth.
Symbolism is not limited to a movement. It is an enduring method of communication. Jung explains that through exploration of symbols one will eventually discover its fundamental archetype. That succinctly summarizes my path from sketch to sculpture. Art is a process of discovery through query and response. The object created is a summary of that process. The real art is the doing.
Communicating through symbols isn’t a conscious decision for me. Symbols have always been a comfortable vehicle for me to absorb and transmit information. They invite many levels of interpretation. The message can be suggestive, timeless, universal, grand.
I use visual metaphors as a form of poetry expressed in multiple languages at once. The symbols I use are gestural – human, animal and combinations of the two.
The infinite variations of gesture are the root of story telling. Abstracting the form, like editing text, is a process of eliminating anything that doesn’t contribute to the story. What’s left invites viewers to explore and encounter their own archetypes.