Lost/Found in Patterns of Gaia, 2011
This is an entry for a contest I entered titled, „Reality or fiction? Let’s pretend it’s not there.” In the application they asked, "we think the question of what is real and what is fictional has a deeper meaning… If we stop asking ourselves what is real and what is not, what we discern and what we overlook, will we be able to say who we are and what world we really live in?" I took two paintings I made and combined them to form a double-portrait narrative dialogue piece for my proposal. You can see them on my website here and here.The description that followed goes:
Reality is what we make it. This work reflects on emerging planetary consciousness.We are conditioned in society, through methods of mass mind control, to ignore the limitless imaginative potential of our being. We are conscious spiritual beings that have been systemically conditioned to be prisoners of egoic thought that breeds fear, hate, competition, greed, and shallow consumption. This fractured egoic mind is isolated, seeing itself outside the web of connectedness.
The figures in the work are reflecting on nature and the sublime, in a state of stillness, in awe of nature's beauty. (the patterns of nature, the female form, Hurricane vortices, tree rings, vine growth, etc.) This painting is composed of two separate frames in whichboth figures look out with a distant gaze. Man and woman search out for connection and find it in each other and the web that weaves all existence. Their bodies being enveloped by the organic patterning and swirling paint to suggest the greater energy field that surrounds us.
We can and will create a better future as we place ourselves within the planetary ecosystem. We have all the capabilities to design our thoughts and living systems to align with the patterns and cycles of nature. As growing concerns of ecological collapse looms, more and more people are 'awakening' to the true reality that weare parts of an evolving planetary web of life that follows patterns and conditionsthat allowed us to emerge on this earth.
I would love for this work to be seen in the context of a billboard. Art is a portal through which we can access our intuitive, imaginative selves and it is badly needed in public spaces. This image on a billboard would shock and transformthe space. With my work, I aspire to expand perception to dissolve the illusion of separateness.
Gray Edgerton
grayedgerton.com
