LOOKING IN THE REAR VISION MIRROR-COSMICALLY SPEAKING

Where? Oil on linen 50 x 50 cm

 

 

I am continuing with my driving/traveling theme...even though I know it's tangential and thus perhaps somewhat tenuous....but certainly not feeble! My recent previous posts and paintings that, also tenuously but not feebly, touch upon the driving/travelling theme include On My Travels I Saw - Are We There Yet? - Hope and Looking Out The Windows. 

 

For new readers, the kind of driving/traveling I think about are not drives in cars, airplane flights, bus journeys or even luxury cruises, but rather much more exciting possibilities...jaunts that trip into the imagination, slide around perspective, excite metaphor and reveal cosmic potentials. 

 

 

REAR VISION MIRRORS

In my last post Looking Out The Windows I use a short phrase, written by motoring critic Jeremy Clarkson in a review of a 1999 BMW wagon, to launch into a metaphoric exploration of looking out the windows. Clarkson wrote, Yes, it wasn't equipped with other modern features such as parking sensors, but I solved that when manoeuvring by simply looking out the windows.  .

 

So, looking out the windows helps us literally and metaphorically practise perspective, seeing the close and far distances. Handy, in an age where repeated and continuous experience with the short distance between eye and screen exposes us to, and threatens us with, myopic sight and perspective.

 

In the middle of writing my last post I also thought...well what about the metaphoric possibilities of the rear vision mirror.

 

The rear vision mirror presents us with the fascinating potential for keeping an eye on the past, as we live in the present and look to the future. However, cars and other vehicles, are becoming more computerised and automated, providing occupants with entertainment gadgets, and drivers with assistance packages for parking, reversing, orientating and more. The driverless car/vehicle, already in existence, fitted out with all the latest gizmos, may mean that no-one needs to look out the windows ...or look into the rear-vision mirror. If we loose sight of the past and don't look out the windows to the future, maybe we'll just experience a constant myopic present?

 

To see adequately into the future, we have to expand our view of the past. This quote from

The New Universe and The Human Future by cosmologist Prof Joel Primack, and co-author Lawyer and philosopher Nancy Ellen Abrams, says it all really! It is the first line of chapter 5 providentially titled This Cosmically Pivotal Moment. Note that they say we have to expand our view of the past. Myopia is not a handy afflication when expanding 'our view' is called for.

 

WHERE? oil on linen 50 x 50 cm

So, to the painting above. 'Where?' implies a question about a physical position, but it can also ask about a position in time. The image could be the birth of the Universe, as if seen in a rear vision mirror, which is kind of what happens when cosmologists and astronomers examine images of newly discovered cosmic entities. Light reaching us now started its journey eons ago; the past licks at our heels, and sends light and shadows into the future. But, if we don't look out the windows or look into the rear vision mirror we might miss the light and be caught in the shadows.

 

And, of course, the journey maybe be a spiritual one destined to reveal a place within us.

 

Which brings me to another painting...and question:

 

Are We There Yet?

 

 Are We There Yet? Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm
 

 

UPDATE

Where? was a finalist [one of 70 out 2000 entries] in 'Seeing Stars' an art award hosted by the SKA [Square Kilometre Array] the world's largest and most sensitive telescope being built here in Australia and Sth Africa. It is a collaborative project with many nations on board.

The finalists' exhibition was held in Melbourne at the Yarra Gallery, Federation Square.
You can see the finalists HERE
 

 

COSMIC ADDRESS

My next exhibition:

15 to 27 October 2013 at Graydon Gallery, Brisbane.

I am really excited about this show. Shall keep you posted!

 

Until next week,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

 

MYTH

Towards The Past and Future Gouache on paper 21 x 29.7 cm 2013

 

I am re-reading a wonderful book I bought and read in the early 1990s. It is Joseph Campbell: The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. The book is a transcription of a series of conversations which took place between the two men in the years leading to Joseph Campbell's death in 1987. Joseph Campbell 'was the world's foremost authority on mythology', a scholar with deep insights into the interconnnections between mythologies and how they might 'speak' to contemporary society. For more information, please visit the Joseph Campbell Foundation website HERE 

 

Regular readers will know of my long and deep interest in perspective and the potential to develop skills in seeing multiple perspectives [even simultaneously]. Coupled with this is a keen interest in cosmology and the new insights, and perspectives, humanity gains from the unveiling of distances that seem to be getting both smaller and larger. By taking ourselves away from, and outside, Earth- bound perspectives we have an opportunity to 'see' ourselves and humanity in new ways. As I have written before, for me, the most significant realisation is that we all share the one home...planet Earth. In fact, for the time being, and probably into the unforeseeable future, Earth is our only home. There is nowhere else to go! For humanity to survive, and for Earth to provide a continuing and sustainable home, we all need to work to-gether. My recent short story Stirring The Star Dust is an allegorical story about this very issue.

 

So, back to Joseph Campbell. Apart from many many profound observations and insights, I was struck by an answer Campbell gave to a question asked by Moyers.  

MOYERS: What kind of new myth do we need?

CAMPBELL: We need myths that will identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet.

Remember, this conversation ocurred in the mid to late 1980s. We now have people like Prof Joel Primack and his wife Nancy Ellen Abrams calling for the same thing, but from a perspective that is steeped in contemporary cosmological research, as well as an understanding of story, myth and the arts. I have previously referred to their recent book, which I have read, keep beside my bed and highly recommend, The New Universe and The Human Future: How a shared cosmology could transform the world. Currently environmental issues, already apparent in the 80s, are now manifesting in noticeable outcomes that threaten food production, climate, water quality and quantity and more. It seems to me that Campbell's call for myths that vision us as dwellers of Earth, and not just by nation, region, religion or race, is vital.

 

 

Seeking The Past and Future Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm 2013

 

The basic premises, or resonnances, of age-old symbols can be visually re-articulated to 'speak' to us today. As regular readers know, this is what I search to do in my paintings, particularly with my much loved transcultural/religious tree-of-life. More recently I have been stirred to paint the ouroboros, the age-old symbol of a snake eating its own tail. This symbol was used by the ancients to visually describe the Universe, as they understood and observed it. Today, modern cosmologists also use it to visually describe the Universe and the relationship between the quantum and cosmic worlds ie: as we understand and observe. For more on this aspect of the ourboros please check out my previous posts COSMIC ADDRESS and SNAKES EATING THEIR OWN TAILS 

 

Symbols can speak across time, history and space. It is up to us to listen, ask, seek and explore. Imagination is a key! Why? Because, imagination draws upon human race memory and sensation, not just individual impulses. Imagination can stir the past, present and future. It agitates and stimulates. It is a gift to humanity...a gift of the stars maybe? If you believe we are all, like everything else in the Universe, are made of star dust...remnants of the Big Bang...then imagination is definitely a key! 

 

You might be interested in a 2009 post I wrote called FAITH IN IMAGINATION

 

All Of Us Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm 2013

All of Us inspired me to paint Eternity's Breath

 

I've just reworked my COSMOLOGY GALLERY on my website. Please click HERE to see it.

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

COLLECTIVE MEMORY

                                      Collective Memory Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm

This is a new painting. The idea of collective memory really interests me because until recently I thought memory was personal, individual and private. I am sure aspects of it are, but to think a group we can have memories is intriguing. Also, the possibility that inherited consciousness from the past may have a subconscious influence on our lives is fascinating. Indeed, it makes one ask questions about the thoughts and beliefs which we carry, but upon deep reflection do not vibrate at the right level for us. Are they part of an inherited consciusness which is not useful in this day and age? How do we rid ourselves of this consciousness particularly if it is not useful? Recognising that it exists is probably the first step.

In this painting I have placed the trans-cultural/religious tree-of-life at the centre of an emanation of thoughts which are represented by the small dots. These thoughts change colour as they move through time to become memories. Yet, everything is connected and a vibration is maintained. The tree-of-life represents everyone...past-present-future.


Collective Memory Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm