Lila

’I make all my decisions on intuition. But then, I must know why I made that decision. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.’’ -Ingmar Bergman

Sister paintings on paper, 22x30, mixed media and oil. The one on the right, Lila, is a companion to Seva (To be of service), which was made a year ago. The trinities of dancing figures are rendered and inspired by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, my favourite Symbolist painter. The works are also inspired by some of the forms in Russian futurism, notably Malevich’s Suprematism, which dismantled the logic of representation in its interest of painting itself as a medium, a painterly idiom.

These works are also inspired by research in esoteric systems, specifically alchemy: the transmutation of metals, which originated in Hellenistic Egypt and the Greek conquest after Alexander the Great. Alchemists were either highly esteemed as philosophers and mystics, chemists, or demeaned as con artists. Chemical transformation was considered analogous to the process of uniting the soul with the body, needing to be purified with the divine. Plato’s demiurge, the craftsman/creator, was foundational to the role of the alchemist as capable of imitating nature’s processes, balancing and transmuting base metals into noble ones. A few alchemical principles are further developed by Hermeticism.
1. Everything grows
2. Everything strives for perfection
3. Through long periods of time, natural cycles