Approaching Wholeness
Spring - Summer, 2014
I liked the idea of doing a triptych and wanted to explore ways to make my work appear less flat. I visualized processes, layers of ink and color, levels of ink dilution, and overall patterns before I began. Inspired from reading Jung, I set out to depict the process of evolving oneself. The series both depicts and embodies the process of actualizing and honing one’s psyche.
Dark is the Night
Undiluted ink with uniform, bright bands.
Primitive, amorphous, and mostly static, the inchoate self is of little consequence.
The Center is Everywhere
Undiluted ink over diluted ink with a more diverse palette.
Rippling with angst, the moment of catalyzed change is frozen in time. The new self wounds itself into existence.
The Awakened Way
Undiluted ink over diluted ink with two separated levels of color intensity and band width.
A new metastasis stares us in the face, but one which will need more time still to cook. In attaining self knowledge, the soul mirrors how the universe tends to conserve complexity.
A year or so after I finished Approaching Wholeness, I began working on designs for a mural to be painted in Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe ahead of its 2016 opening. Long after it was finished, I decided on the title Wholeness, as it feels like a completion of this series. Being painted on a physical wall was a way to resolve the 2-dimensionl to 3-dimensional progression. With the combination of UV-reactive paint and blacklights, it appeared to be moving. The black paint of the background becomes a void, over which float fragments of an other-worldly something in an arrangement which subverts the title.
