Progress of a painting - "HEAVEN & HELL" - mapping the human consciousness...
Where are we coming from - where are we going?
I was always interested in how things are wired throughout the universe; the source code behind everything. From an early age on, I was looking for an explanation why we are here and what our journey might be about. After years of studying these mysteries, one day the time had come to make a painting about it.
By layering different religious concepts with my own feeling of how it is all bound together, the painting “Heaven and Hell” took form within a period of 18 months
It all started about ten years ago, when I tried to visualize the shamanic view on personal transformation (as described in Castaneda’s Don Juan series), in a one page graphic chart. I wanted to know how the transformation from an “ordinary man” to a “warrior” (in this case a man, who is not longer occupied by his reasoning mind and fully aware of everything around him), could be translated into a diagram. When I saw my final sketch, I realized that most of the religious concepts of our world are talking about exactly the same things, only the interpretation, and with that, the words for these ideas, change. Would it be possible to unify them?
By taking only the most important and obvious truths out of these concepts and translating them into a modern language, I refined the first sketch over the years and started to paint it onto a 7ft canvas in winter 2009. I showed my progress to Greg Pettit, an artist friend of mine, and he suggested looking up the tree of life from the Kabbala. I didn’t know about it before and I was astonished for it was such fine description of the universe. The structure of it fit perfectly into what I already came up with. My own interpretation of the tree served as a framework for the already existing structure.
So the painting is based on different belief systems and tries to come up with a synopsis of these, translated to our modern times. It shows the evolutionary path of consciousness from the point where it “emerges” in the material world and animates matter. The painting lines out the realms which consciousness has to pass before finally uniting with its source again. It rises from the animalistic realm (senses, lust) to a contemplative (ego, logic) and then up to a level where it is able to transcend itself. The assumption that human beings are able to reach that last level and escape the never ending circle of life and death is the main message behind this work.
This I should amazing!!!
Thank you! :-)
Beautiful painting. Very interesting diagram foundation of your painting. What does it mean "Nagual" on the top of the sketch?
A nagual is a shaman who trancended his human form...
Thanks for clarification! I Google-it a little too. ;)
So deep! I love seeing the process. What is the medium?
Acrylic 😉
Are you an ayahuascero, by chance? You don't have to answer that–I know it's a personal question. It's just that your artwork is so cosmic, like the inner vision of consciousness. Such a ride seeing your artwork, and looking into the layering, and recognizing divinity in it.
:-)....well there has been journeys for me ;-)....Thanks for your words, means a lot to me that people can see something in my works.