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La
Vista Totale:apv, VII, The Fit, 16 x 12, 1994
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Amherst and Delphi
These two are related and concern two poets, Emily Dickenson and Kathleen Forsythe. A poem by Emily Dickenson is transcribed in the lower left cartouche: Meeting by accident We hovered by design As often as a century An error so divine Is ratified by destiny But destiny is old And economical of bliss As Midas is of gold. The Cathedral of St Gallen appears below a Wheel of Fire. Wheel of fire. In the upper left is a landscape with a circle in the sky. This circle represents a 'wheel of fire' or 'wheel of energy' representing the epitome of the plane of reality in which the figures exist. This wheel of energy also serves to connect to other planes or 'realities' and thus is iconographically connected to the medallions. In this wheel of fire at least two sets of rotating energies operate: one running clockwise and the other running counterclockwise.
On the iconographic agenda: The iconography in general is constructed according to tenets put forth by Dali in his Paranoiac Critical Method. According to Dali's method, personal experience donates imagery in the form of emblems and symbols with uncertain, ambiguous, or precise meanings to an ongoing constellation map or array of such imagery, and into a psychological whole. My sources in this general approach are Dali, Blake and Edvard Munch. Personal imagery, informed by the archetypal, arises in an individual's experience and returns to the archetypal by way of transformation into art.
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LVT:
apv, Crickets, 1988-94, detail
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I credit Munch with originating this approach through his decision to make personal experience the source of artworks meant to have significance for a broad audience; thus, personal experience, separated from shared myth, is re-presented in such a way that it claims to be the new myth, thus also suggesting the role of artist as hero vis-a-vis this proposed myth. As this new myth operates in contradistinction to the established consensual myth, the artist is assured of being underdog and rebel, thus gathering around himself a measure of the general discontent with the culture.
This coalescing discontent forms the basis of a new concensus of which the artist is hero and mythic figure. This rise to dominance is viral in nature and is achieved by way of the successful injection of memes into the cultural bloodstream. In LVT:apv VIII The Crickets. Two globes confront one another through the screen of the chain link fence. Neither globe is the original of which the other is a reflection.The alchemically elevated imperial orb rests on the ground up against the fence, presumably hidden from the sight of the two women. Within the highly colored and vibrating abstraction, insects, including crickets, are meticulously painted in actual size. As to LVT:apv IX Untitled - this version is "definitive" of multistylistic doctrine. A very slowly developing narrative has been examined from the viewpoints of a sequence of "minds" implied by deep variants of style: Between Amherst and Delphi, The Crickets, The Psychedelic (LVT:apv VI) version.
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La
Vista Totale:apv, Above and Below, |
The intention of this painting conceptually was that it would be the most retrogressive and conservative while also being the ultimate, thus defying the progressive expectation of stylistic "development." In LVT:apv X Skuylkill the veil of maya is thick. It needs cutting. There is a black sword in the sky. Hanging over paradise and incipient empire, it is Kali's sword, and Arthur's. In LVT:apv XI Untitled the figures appear as small in a huge garden that suggests the Garden of Paradise. In LVT:apv XII On the Occasion of Donna's Enlightenment the central figure of this painting is the rotated infinity symbol. This symbol is rotated so that the lines cease to cross and the whole figure begins to open up: It might be possible to look at infinity from a different perspective. If we did this, what would happen? In this painting two infinities intersect. Are they different infinities? Are there various infinities? Limitless numbers of infinities? In this painting, the infinity loops are studded with medallions, each suggesting another reality. Among these realities are a medallion that frames the two figures in their contractual relationship.
A veil of mica 'cells' runs in front of the loops. The mica cells, arranged as they are, reference Maturana's structural coupling extended beyond two entities toward an ecological vision of continuous relatedness. In LVT:apv XIII Ceremony in the Forest the initiating figure on the right has raised a sword, and the blond initiate has lowered her head, offering her neck to the blade. In this painting, the contract has led not to radiant wisdom, but to a beheading in darkness. As LVT:apv XIV The Central Paradise developed, the two figures became nearly submerged in the verdant growth which has taken over everything. A big blue snake appeared unconsciously marking this for me as the garden of Paradise, showing the garden and the two figures (now encrypted Adam and Eve) overwhelmed by temptation ; over the garden is a cruciform organization of medallions, suggesting perhaps, a hope for redemption. A portrait of X is at the center, another portrait of her scarred by the crash, on the right. Concerning LVT:apv XV Two Women Waiting for Frank, I did not paint this painting, but left an unfinished canvas in the studio. It was completed by X, and was a surprise to me. It was an unexpected expansion in fulfillment of the agenda of LVT:apv by placing a partial view outside my own imagination. In LVT:apv XVI Above and Below the dark woman becomes the dark Virgin, and has left the earth. Surrounded by a gallery of four hundred angels, she presides over the union of arriving pilgrim with the newly ordained priestess.
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