SEEKING PERSPECTIVE

Seeking Perspective oil on linen 92 x 102 cm

LAST POST AND PHOENIXES

For those of you who read my last post Sometimes Things Just Do Not Work Out you will be pleased to know that my painting mojo returned. For those who have not read my last post, it was about a painting that was just not working. After some reflection, and a few weeks of  painting, it had to be wiped.

Seeking Perspective [above] is not the 'phoenix' of the painting I wiped out. The would-be-phoenix is resting. The wiped-out phoenix-in-waiting painting rests near my easel, as evidenced by the photo below...it's the red one on the left. As I work, keeping it in sight helps the percolation of new images and ideas. It's 'wings' are fluttering!

In response to my last post I received many comments about how interesting it is to see how an artist works. Thus, another reason for the photo below and the one at the bottom. The photo
below shows that I placed the 'failed' painting in sight of where I work. Other paintings are in the studio for all sorts of reasons eg: they need coats of varnish or the sides of the stretched linen need painting etc.

Can you tell my 'studio' is also known as a garage! I dream of.....

So, let's discuss SEEKING PERSPECTIVE.

In the photo below you can see me painting Seeking Perspective. The underlying coats of paint had been applied weeks ago. So, last week when I wiped out the other painting, I turned to this new one. Even while I had been working on the other one, this prepared linen kept drawing my attention. I should have decided to work on it first! As I have written before canvases, even blank white ones, speak to me. I should have paid earlier attention to the one that has now become Seeking Perspective!

 Me in my studio working on Seeking Perspective. On the right is Life Calling: Anyone There? On the left is the wiped out painting and behind it is Birth Of Light

TREE-OF-LIFE - PERSPECTIVE
My much loved age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life cascades across the canvas. Is it cascading across the vastness of outer space or is its existence an intimate microscopic world...or does it harken to something in between vastness and seeming invisibility? Perhaps, it exists in all perspectives at once?

The title Seeking Perspective can be interpreted a couple of ways. Maybe perspective itself is seeking, maybe it implies that perspective is sought?

With recent atrocities that have happened around the world, the use of the transcultural/religious tree-of-life has given me some solace. Indeed, it is a shared symbol across many cultures and religions and yes, it is closely shared by the three Abrahamic religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity.  

The tree-of-life, as a symbol of all life, is a conduit for perspective itself to seek out new ways of 'seeing', at the same time as inviting...even demanding...us to seek these perspectives too. As the tree reaches into unknown spaces of close and far distance, especially in partnership with cosmology, we can 'slide' along the branches, revelling in 'in/sights' never imagined. Well, we can...if we go seeking! Are we brave enough? I think some are...and some are not. And, perhaps some deliberately 'climb' a 'tree' that has been poisoned.

Seeking Perspective's cosmic potential, draws the viewer across many dimensions. As I was painting, I imagined the red ball as Earth, maybe 'bleeding', maybe hot with potent potential, maybe just plain HOT. The tree-of-life provides vascular-like energy in 'empty' space, almost cradling 'Earth'. But, it may not be Earth at all. In a Multiverse...yep that's right we may exist in not one Universe, but many...maybe the red ball is our Universe?

Taking a cosmic perspective makes it abundantly clear that we humans, for the foreseeable future anyway, only have one home...Earth! It also makes war, killing, terrorism and fundamentalism of all kinds, seem pretty puerile.

You might like to read Team Humanity

RECOMMENDATION
I highly recommend the Boston Goble's Art Critic, Sebastian Smee's essay Confronting The Unthinkable In Goya's Art  Its trigger is the Goya exhibition at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, but Smee, with amazing dexterity, weaves contemporary themes into an analysis that prods re/thinking about our perspectives of humanity. It is a sombre read, but eloquently illustrates the power of art to provoke analysis.

Here's a 'close distance' photo of Seeking Perspective...in progress.

PANDORA
And, here's the link to the official notification that my BLOG, yes this one, has been selected for archiving [in perpetuity] on PANDORA, Australia's official archive of online sties of significance and long-term research value. Please click HERE I am really pleased to have my work acknowledged in this way.

Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

UNTETHERING LANDSCAPE

Other Universes Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm

At my artist's talk in discussion with Dr. Christine Dauber on March 26 she asked me a question about landscape. She basically asked if I identified myself as a landscape painter. This is an interesting one for me, because for many years I would have described myself as such. However, whilst I still paint what could be called landscapes, I don't think the term 'landscape painter', or describing my painting as 'landscape', is fulsome enough. I've pondered this for some time now, even prior to Dr. Dauber bringing the topic to the fore. When I answered her question I basically said 'yes and no'! I ventured to suggest that whilst my feet are planted on the ground my head is actually in the clouds, so I 'see' the external and internal world in and from multiple perspectives.

I have said 'external' and 'internal' because the way I 'see' is both an outward observation with my eye, of eye ball and pupil, as well as an inward one with my mind's 'eye'. The latter is, I suppose, what I 'see' in and with my imagination. Both observations involve another level, which is my emotional response which can quicken or ignite excitement, further wonder, intellectual stimulation, revelation.

Someone, and I cannot remember who, described my paintings as 'spiritual landscapes'. This is probably getting close to the mark, but I still have a niggling problem with the word landscape and what it means to most people ie: an image of or inspired by the literal physical landscape of our external environment. I have had a thought...maybe this meaning of landscape tethers us to a line of sight perspective, with its contingent uni dimensionality, that ultimately blinds us to other dimensions. Are we, in fact, attached to a diminished idea of landscape which affects how we view our world and beyond? If we are, its not a helpful way of 'seeing' as we live locally in an increasingly globalised world.

Recent natural disasters remind us that our landscape can change dramatically and dreadfully, not just cyclically with seasons etc. Change is inherent within the external landscape and tethering ourselves to a vision of constancy in one dimension, I propose, makes it much harder to cope with catastrophe, as well as blinding us to new ways of 'seeing'. The latter probably impacts on how we live in and treat our environment.

The Beginning Of Everything Oil On Linen 90 x 180 cm

If everything in this universe is the result of a BIG BANG, then everything is the BIG BANG'S dust. If everything [and this includes us!] is dust from a common source, then everything is 'landscape'. I ponder upon this and think about how I am inspired...not just what inspires me. Once something triggers my imagination I see inside myself. I actually feel my eyes 'glass' over as I almost plummet to immeasurable internal depths. It often feels much more vast than the external world. In a way, by traversing my internal world I find  pathways to alternative outside worlds. The landscape is within and without.

Cosmic Dust Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm

If everything is the dust from the BIG BANG then there must be a common fundamental code imbedded within everything. Now that's exciting. I can already 'see' that this code is the foundation of and for landscape...a landscape that is not about time or place, but of existence. This code is both here and now, which is in the past and the future. Maybe our imagination has the capacity to stir this common fundamental code agitating it to reveal itself?

However, if we are tethered to a uni dimensional notion of landscape then it means we [probably mainly westerners!] have trained our brains, over time, to view the world this way. I am reminded of Dr. Norman Doidge's fabulous book, 'The Brain That Changes Itself' and his talk at this year's Qld Writers' Festival. Encultured ways of 'seeing' create maps in our brains, but we can change these maps if, as time goes on, we find that previous ways of 'seeing' are not helpful. I am suggesting it is time to change! This is where art's agency lies. Art can help trigger the impetus to create new maps in our brains...maps that link more with imagination or our 'mind's eye' rather than just our eye of eye ball and pupil. I have previously written about Norman Doidge's book and art:
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/01/love.html
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/02/becoming.html

As I explore the potential and potency of the transcultural/religious tree-of-life weaving into my paintings, I wonder if the tree holds the clue to the code imbedded within everything? After all, it can represent systems of all kinds. Its branches and its roots link matter and air, heaven and earth. It symbolises life across religions and cultures through stories and myth. It breaths for us and the planet, and it is in a constant state of change. I wonder.


Cheers,
Kathryn
http://www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com/

Garden of Eden

In The Garden of Eden Oil on linen 50 x 94 cm

For a while now, I have been wanting to visually delve into the story of Adam and Eve, a story shared by the three Abrahamaic religions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It will not come as a surprise to regular readers of my BLOG that the tree of life and the tree of knowledge are pivotal symbols which have drawn me to the epic tale and all that it might mean. Apart from the details of the story, what intrigues me most are concepts of the sacred feminine, duality and 'The Fall'. The latter may not be a fall from Grace , but a fall to Grace [via a journey through life or maybe lives]. For to know who we are, we also need to know who we are not, hence we need to 'know' good and 'error'. I have previously written about duality on this BLOG
http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-wednesday-18-march-at-6-pm-i-am-co.html

In the painting above Adam and Eve are crowned by the flowing branches of the tree of life representing eternal [divine] life and the tree of knowledge representing the knowledge of good and evil [I prefer error instead of evil]. These trees meet to create a Yoni symbol representing the sacred feminine. Reclaiming the sacredness and equality of the feminine is an age old quest which still persists today in many aspects of contemporary life, culture and religion. The sacred feminine does not exclude the masculine, but encompasses that feminine aspect of the masculine. The masculine can emotionally, physically and spiritually share in the experience. He is reminded of it in mortal life when he physically is one with a woman. The Yoni suggests that the Garden of Eden is to be found within and is not just meant to be some kind of external environment which is subject to the vagaries of mere human care and or manipulation.

In the story Eve is created from Adam's rib. "She was not made out of his head to surpass him, nor from his feet to be trampled on, but from his side to be equal to him, and near his heart to be dear to him." [Jamieson-Fausset Brown Bible Commentary] Eve eternally shares a part of Adam just as Adam also experiences the feminine. The absent part of his rib represents Eve's presence within. Absentia does not mean lack of inclusion. With these thoughts in mind culpability for the Temptation ascribed soley to Eve seems rather lame or perhaps opportunistic.

What also interests me is the conduit to the internal unseen parts of our psyche and spirit this story gifts to us. The imagined [by God] comes to life in Creation. How many unseen elements of our lives need to be explored? This is the potency of all art ie: its ability to bring some kind of perception to the imagined. The distance between what we call reality and the imagined is vast going beyond size, space or time. By this I mean that there can be a vastness within the nano as well as the universal.

I am not a biblical student, but I am intensly interested in stories which gift to us the chance for metaphysical interpretations and thus great insight. I am also interested in stories which are shared by those religions which in many parts of the world sit uncomfortably and often dangerously with each other. A previous post about a painting called 'Forever Connected' discusses this further. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/05/forever-connected.html

The Garden Of Eden Oil on linen 50 x 95 cm 2009