Creation is an act of throwing together; there’s beauty in collision.
I have been working on colliding Eastern and Western philosophies of environmentalism. In many Eastern traditions, there is no separation between oneself and nature. In many Western traditions, man is seen as above nature, the steward. What if both were true?
Half submerged in shadow, a subject’s light becomes evident.
A horizon is where the sky meets the sea. I want to focus on the horizon. That is where the beauty of transitions become clear.
Sunsets and sunrises don’t need translation. The sun sets in the East while it rises in the West. Simultaneously.
Speckled light
I’m easily enthralled by the way light hits a surface. Prior to finishing this piece, I took it out to a mangrove forest, and watched as light danced across the canvas. Creating in the context of Creation, Nature, God means putting my materials at the will of His rhythms.
So I watched. There were many birds present, watching me too.
I was interested in seeing how the unfinished-ness of a painting would interact with the ever-present growth of Nature. It reminded me that growth and Creation isn’t a linear process. There are fast spurts of color and curls and death. But there are also slower and more ancient cycles, like the reliable movement of the sun that filters through the foliage of a mangrove forest.
Photo of canvas in mangrove forest thanks to filmmaker Diego Alejandro Gasparutti, who collaborated with me on this project of seeing how art in nature would effect our interpretations of what constitutes as art.
