This Human Body

I paint sometimes like my life is at stake... There is something I need to say, or fear it will fester within me and I will surly parish. This drive can be so forceful sometimes that it trumps the planning and drafting I usually take such care to map out before I ever lift my brush to paint. I like to think of it as an exercise in intuitive painting... a visual stream of consciousness. And that is precisely what I did with this painting here... 

I often describe my process as if I were waking from a dream, I don't get to know my work until after its been completed... then I can become acquainted with it. This can be rather frustrating, sometimes I don't get to know my work until years later... But for this one, however I had a strong idea about the message I was portraying mid-way... And though I am not religious, the idea is religious in nature. 

There was a time in my life where I looked to anything to alleviate the internal suffering I was experiencing on a daily basis. And religion was one of those things. I even used the premise of some Catholic beliefs to explain some of my bizarre experiences. There is a belief that God's voice is filled with so much divine power, that a mere whisper would shatter the feeble human body into pieces... to protect us and still be able to communicate, God created specific messenger angels, known as seraph... A seraphim would come and speak to you the words that God would communicate directly if He could, surrounded by a blinding light so bright that human eyes would only see the light. The angelic creature is also said to have 6 wings and 4 heads, and sometimes shows itself as a flying serpent that's on fire, which so closely parallels fantasy and ancient Greek mythology I wonder why some Christians take themselves so seriously... but I digress... 

I do love tying religious metaphors into reality, and using them as poetic inspiration for my work. In my spiritual journey, and believing in powers in the universe greater than myself, this is a concept I can buy into...  There are some forces that this human body can't handle... extreme heat and cold, high levels of radiation, toxic chemicals, even extreme emotional distress, so the idea that there is something so powerful we just cant handle the exposure is not hard to buy into. But there is something so gentle and comforting about the concept that there is a sort of "buffer" set in place to protect us from what would destroy us, that the seraphim has a divine message from a power so loving and yet so strong we would parish if it were said to us directly. The idea itself envelopes the mind is a soothing embrace, and I think on some level we all look towards a divine care, or at least a mentor to be an emotional buffer of life's lessons... that messages from the universe, or God, or a close friend. 

So I took that idea, and here, I wanted to capture the divine moment where this Seraphim is receiving its message, bowing in submission, awaiting the command, surrounded by the ethereal galactic wonderment I imagine "heaven" to be made of.... This painting plays with the idea of barring witness to the pre-catalyst, to the turn of events is in essence barring witness to a miracle's birth. Where is the angel going? To whom is she going to speak with? And what is God telling her to say? Are they speaking in words? Or some celestial transfer of energy? And how will the new turn of events play out?

My favorite thing about art is all of the questions I get to ask, even a finished painting can tell a different story every day. Which is why it is my most fluent locution... 

"Angelic Locutions" 24"x53" oil on wood