The paintings you are about to set eyes upon come from 1999-2001, they are my first ‘real’ paintings. I’d just begun studying Audio/Visual Production at the Bournemouth Arts Institute, 18 years young, when I stumbled across a copy of Carl Jung’s “The Archtypes and the Collective Unconscious” whilst browsing their library. I was flicking through the pages when the MANDALAS jumped out at me, I read what he had to say on the matter and was inspired:
…Mandala means ‘circle’. There are innumerable variants of the motif (…) but they are all based on the squaring of the circle. Their basic motif is the premonition of a centre of personality; a kind of central point within the psyche, to which everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which is itself a source of energy. The energy of the central point is manifested in the almost irresistible compulsion to become what one is, just as every organism is driven to assume the form that is characteristic of its nature, no matter what the circumstances. The centre is not felt or thought of as the ego but, if one may so express it, as the self. Although the centre is represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by a periphery containing everything that belongs to the self—the paired opposites that make up the total personality. This totality comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal unconscious, and finally an indefinitely large segment of the collective unconscious whose archetypes are common to all mankind. (…) The self, though on the one hand simple, is on the other hand an extremely composite thing, a “conglomerate soul.”
- C. G. Jung
Thus armed, and following my instincts, I would take my canvas and cover it in paint; my only restraint was to be a circle, or something approximating a circle, in or near the centre. I would then sit back and contemplate the painting-in-progress, focusing intently on the central point. Forms would begin to make themselves known to me and I would pick them out. I would take long contemplative breaks often throughout the work; until eventually it was clear that the painting was finished.—
Though I may’ve been finished with the painting, the painting was not finished with me: in the period soon after completion (and continuing to a lesser degree even to this day) the images would reveal me to myself as I contemplated them. Rich self-imaginings would stir inside and I would make realisations about my deeper feelings, my truer selves, my path.
InJoy…
InneRevolution
This one deals with Introspection & its fruits,
it marked the realisation of my own Inner evolution…
A Herb aided Contemplation of my Being
that spreads far beyond Now,
to there & soon…
I see myself looking towards my centre,
where I am brewing in the heart
of a Psychedelic Octopus -
I swim in a primordiartistic soup
of swirls spirals triangles squares & circles,
gradually gaining shape…
A (k)New Beginning that will never End,
as long as the Start alludes us…
forever Beginning to End.
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1999. Acrylic on Canvas Board. 30 x 40cm.
Delving deep…
I stare at the deep blue
Purple hue
Night sky,
I reach before me into the Green-tinged haze I just exhaled
and find my fingers probe my brain…
I find myself again
In the arms of a plant,
Together we gather myself for a
Journey to the haunted Center…
Everything is going swimmingly, even solid trees ripple
as I ease further into myself which is
out of my mind…
Though here now, hear know
I see sights that blind me to deafness!!!
In the dark I see All!!!
a a a A!!
the rest just doesn’t compare to this…
Is…
SubSubConsciousness
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1999. Acrylic on Canvas Board. 30 x 40cm.
Hear I Am(?)
There is a sense that is All senses combined,
a Sixth Sense…
There is a Third I that Sees what you hear…
There is a place,
a hyperspace,
where your boundaries dissolve
and you are energy in motion…
Everything exists here in Infinity,
here in the very center of the perimeter where we is
Stoned, infatuated with the Sounds
we See we feel we Be…
We are the Light that dances in the void,
without whoms trance Life itself would be devoid
of Love, and everything would fall apart…
a part
a p a r t . . . …
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2000. Acrylic on Board. 100 x 40cm.
I in the Try Angle
A Triangle inside a Circle, a Trinity in Infinity…
A Fourth: Dimension, A Pyramid observed…
Our Earth, constrained by Cubists…
Where the cube is constructed happiness, the spiral is the destroyer:
Bliss.
My Eye
Buddha smiling at me from the void:
My
(k)no
I
Feel his laughter ripple a spiral of concentric
Circles
Of Bliss
In this, in
This
this
this…
?
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2000. Acrylic on Cardboard. 70 x 100cm.
EveryThing I Ever Wanted To Say (About my elfs)
I Love Everything…
yet I try to extend beyond myself
only to find me chasing right behind…
I fractal within
when I just wanna be going out,
But where is She?
Where is the one to take me out of me?
Break me out of embracing myself???
The elf ladies are kind to me
but they cannot satisfy my physical desire…
The Fire that rises
The mushroom cloud.
I need to Bless
All else
In embrace
With the Goddess
Embodied.
But my appearance is shoddy,
I shine from within
but not everyone sees that
The elf men are also good to me…
All
So
People
think
I am crazy,
In a hazy daze
of laziness…
’Cos you cannot
get to us
In here
I embrace
Our
One Soul
at the inverted
Centre
I kiss myself
All else
IS
Forgotten…
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2000. Acrylic on Canvas Board. 40 x 30cm.
Making Love With The Universe
E-gooooooooo…
going…
going…
*Try a toot*
Gone.
*It’s a hoot*
Back.
*In cahoots?*
Gone…
*Inner roots…*
After taking a toke on a spliff, our man, who was sitting cross-legged, slowly leaned back -
his hands coming to rest behind his head, elbows up & out…
The configuration of his limbs reminded him of the mid-section of the Tree of Life…
He looked for the Soul of Man and he found it at his centre…
Hello? Heylo? HALO…
The angles, of my triangles…
The Angels…
Can you see them in the ‘ringleader’?
Can you see them in the Stars?
They reflect themselves above and below and in every direction out into infinity,
Then her arms unfold – leaving tracers… becoming more arms…
SHAKTI/SHIVA!!!
How I wish to please her!
That is my intent!! Manifest !
LOVE IS ALL!!! ! !
Another wave retreats, and by some amazing feat:
There is my protection…
A huge Rasta in the sky,
manifest in the clouds, is it I?
Who am I?
Here I am…
On the ground, feeling sick…
The wave is coming back in,
surging through my body and
pushing puke onto the sand beside me,
which is me for a second before I am me again…
Then I purge myself from myself once more and re-enter.
I have to lie on my side as I leave myself,
I cannot support my own weight…
My stomach contorts and I feel pain -
not just physical distress but the distress of being expelled from myself and then accepted…
then expelled then accepted… It gets less like pain and more like the sheer intensity of existence
until I can no longer contain myself, this is the last of the purge and I roll onto my back…
Infinite… then definite -
Yes, definitely sweating –
Heart beating fast…
I crawl out of my sleeping bag, peeling off another layer of personality with it…
Depth perception and angles are all sorts because I am perceiving from so many places,
taking off a jumper is a transcendental delight because I am perceiving from so many dimensions…
Still I sweat, is this dizziness?
No… it’s disassociation… diffusion…
Confusion for a while, then the Wind cools my burning body and I slip into a lesson:
Every time I close my eyes I become that nothing…
Adjusted to the infinite non-action of that nothing… … ???
Something:
So I open my eyes and suddenly I’m flowing out into everything…
Enjoying the infinite results of that one-action… … ???
Becoming too intense, my body twists, back to nothing:
So I open my eyes and suddenly I’m flowing out into everything…
Enjoying the infinite results of that one-action… … ???
Becoming too intense, my body twists, back to nothing:
And this in itself is a joyous blissful agonizing eternity of flux between identity and BEING,
off and on, On and on… then longing and seeing and FEELING and BEING and SEEING
and BEING to INFINITY (even beyond! As Buzz would say)…
That’s what I am:
What I am:
I AM.
Each time is increasing or superior or just different but the same…
Evolved on somehow, mutated maybe…
But baby it’s all the same because it’s new…
KNEW…
There is no memory of what has gone before…
Just the living product of it…
Extending infinitely from where it’s been to where it’s going in a big fat Circle
(which {when viewed from multiple dimensions} is really a Spiral)…
Man! It’s all so complex I think I’ll just ride it for a while…
Smile…
^^…Wake UP!!!^
HAPPINESS…
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2001. Acrylic, Photocopies & Bodily Fluids on Canvas. 60 x 80cm.