Recipe to make gold paint with gold leaf. I will experiment with this recipe from Kathy Storm:
Medieval Arts & Crafts: How to make gold paint.
Author: G. Barnes
Justiniano – On Archetypes from Nature
“Instead of talking of the imprinting of the imagination as coming directly from “above” … this passage looks at it from “below,” as a process of ascent. In it can be seen a way of speaking of the transfiguration of sense-perception in the creative act. In other words, it suggests the possibility of not having solely to rely on the illuminations coming from above to depict the archetypes.”
Fr. Silioun Justiniano (2013) ‘Archetype and Symbol III: On Noetic Vision.’ Retrieved from Orthodox Arts Journal
Short Film Screening with The Human Scale at NZIFF
I am delighted to confirm screenings of my short film The Mobile Meat Processing Unit at the NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL in Auckland and Wellington. It has been paired with the internationally acclaimed documentary The Human Scale.
SEE LINK FOR DETAILS: Screening with The Human Scale at NZIFF | The Mobile Meat Processing Unit.
Rare Creatures
I have started a painting – it features a byzantine Christ transfigured on a Moon landscape. I’m thinking of calling it “Rare Creatures”. It is in all respects a ‘Cosmic Christ’ I suppose, although that intention was never explicit in my thinking through the design. That, in one of those lovely ‘oh yeah’ moments, comes later…. The Cosmic Christ is a mystical archetype most succinctly expressed by one of my favourite theologians, Fr. Matthew Fox, who also reiterates one of my favourite female artists – Hildegarde of Bingen:
… the “Cosmic Christ Archetype” is a universal way of seeing the world. The Cosmic Christ Archetype is a way of seeing the splendour and divine grace in all things. Hildegard of Bingen, the twelfth century Christian mystic, said, “Every creature is a glittering mirror of divinity.” In terms of John’s gospel, this is the light of Christ in every creature.
If I try to relate in terms of today’s sciences, I think of photons (a tiny indivisible quantity of electromagnetic energy). We know that there are photons in every atom, in every being. Therefore, the Cosmic Christ is the divine radiance that’s present in every galaxy, in every star, every porpoise, every blade of grass, and every human. (see http://www.christpathseminar.org/who-is-the-cosmic-christ/)
Universal archetypes are under threat today. Religious fundamentalism exploits them for its own dubious reasons, modern science continues to expand, evolve and fragment – forgetting the intitial unifying impulse, and even capitalism has nearly totally divorced itself from it’s ‘real’ foundation (gold). We live in slippery times, in a post-nihilist modernity that ‘unabashedly rejects discourses motivated by sentimental allusions to universals’ (Archive Fire; Nihilism)
The advent of hypermediation via communication and digital technologies has combined with what Ray Brassier has called “the negative consummation of the enlightenment”, as well as the ever-expanding assaults on the living flesh and ecological stability of humans everywhere to create a crisis of legitimacy for every existing linguistic and normative institution on the planet. We do not inhabit a modern or even ‘postmodern’ world, we subsist in an advanced industrial calamity. (see http://www.archivefire.net/search/label/nihilism)
While I think the sentence ‘we subsist in an advanced industrial calamity’ is a beautifully framed phrase that nicely sums up our current state of being, here in 2013, and approaching the brink of several ecological collapses – I personally reject the entire nihilist framework.
We, as artists, have I believe heightened sensitive instincts – and these should be trusted. So when I read this above, and then the following below – I look to what lightens my soul. Matthew Fox goes on to say how the Cosmic Christ archetype can be employed to help ‘save the environment:’
…it is not about duty; it’s about pleasure and delight. That the earth is a garden, radiating with a divine presence. When it is in danger, it is like the crucified Christ; the compelling urgency here is born out of the experience of beauty and grace, not out of duty. Beauty and grace inspire us to let go of our lifestyles that are hostile to the health of the environment, and to recreate our lives in terms of politics, economics, education, worship, all of it. So that’s one of the practical implications—in terms of the ecological crisis, it gets us moving and awake. (Fox; Cosmic Christ)
Moving, and awake. Compared with the ‘post-nihilist’ environmental strategy:
The future of our species will depend entirely upon the willingness of people to abandon our previous and varied delusions for intensely reflective strategies of praxis and collective habitation. We have to design new delusions for vastly more pragmatic ecologies.
‘Beauty and grace’ or ‘new delusions’? I’m a simple soul, I listen to what is ‘enlivening’. When I begin to read some writers of this ‘nihilistic epoch’ – the post-modern and post-structuralist writers who have rejected theism – I find that a small greyness descends.
I avoid the grey; in search of colour – verdaccio and subtle glazes of blue and green.
Celestial Dynamics – Kimm Taylor
The VEIL and ICONS IN SPACE
Retrieving a dusty copy of “The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross” from my shelf, I read:
“The less distinct is their understanding of him, the closer they approach him, as Prophet David says: he made darkness his hiding place [Ps. 18:1.1] Thus in drawing near him you will experience darkness because of the weakness of your eye. You do well then, at all times, in both adversity and prosperity, whether spiritual or temporal, to consider God as hidden, and call after him thus: “Where have you hidden, Beloved?” (St. John of the Cross, p. 483)
St John, a Spanish Carmelite monk (1542-1591), postulates that the bosom of the Father, the divine essence, is alien to every mortal eye and hidden from every human intellect. This is called ‘negative theology’ – a theology where God is beyond all that exists and that it is by unknowing that one may know Him, by drawing near to the Unknown in the darkness of complete ignorance. A first century Christian mystic, Dionysius the Areopagitic (a disciple of St Paul) first put up the concept:
“For even as light, and especially abundance of light, renders darkness invisible; even so the excess of knowledge, destroys the ignorance which is the only way by which one can attain to God himself.”(Lossky; 1944, p. 25)
Wonderful dichotomy; beautiful and mysterious. Satisfying the dark and the morbid, as well as the craving and the light of my soul – all at the same time. Considering these themes, (as well as one can in a busy urban contemporary life!), led me to wonder how one might draw God, as part of my Sacred Art investigation, if he is thus Unknowable? Obviously – to really understand this requires a lifetime of mystic reflective work – which is just not practical in my life at present. This is why I love being an artist. We are practical beings. We make stuff. Things that can express half formed ideas and pre-conceptions. So, this led me to two practical and physical concepts to work with – the VEIL, and GOD IN SPACE.
1. THE VEIL: Painting it, using it to cover, to hide, to suppress. It’s seductive power – our longing to see what’s beneath. Repression of desire and and subversion of rampant voyuerism. The ‘covered image’ has another voice, beyond the voice the ‘image’ has – what is hidden and why? Another story is created.
I stumbled across this beautiful photographic exhibition of Robert Stivers called Veiled Images at the Akron Art Muesuem (Akron Art Museum; 2012)”. A reviewer, Starr, comments “—we pass back and forth between historical periods; we are sometimes left between them, or in a zone freed of chronological placement all together.” (Starr: 2012)
“This search for context ultimately drives the whole show. It’s Stivers’ device for turning us in upon ourselves, because the only context that we’ll find is the one we create as we follow the numbered sequence of surprising images that leads us around the room.” (Starr, 2012)
I like the idea of a story within the shadows. That context isn’t made immediately obvious, that there is a mystery to be uncovered. This was encouraging – maybe in this way I can present work that travels between histories, between realms, revealing hidden desires.
During the exhibition of my work in April, I received comments that they were ‘intimate’, that people were excited to be able to get up close to ‘history’, to see something usually reserved for musuems. There was a desire to view and examine.
“art tempts its audience with desires to come closer, to inhabit or to possess the art they see and admire.” (Starr, 2012)
Perhaps I could subvert this desire by preventing close examination, by hiding the beauty of these strange little ‘windows to heaven’, close it up with a veil, allowing only a peek – to tempt desire? Maybe.
According to Polish theologian and architect, Jerzy Uácinowicz, the revival of Christian icons began in the early 20th century, when old ones were ‘wiped clean of their historical dust’ to reveal a ‘feast of colours’:
“Once again it became the “window to eternity”,a glimpse into the other world. There was no “curtain” covering it any more. There was no black.” (Uácinowicz; 2010)
Not sure how that relates, but there it is. I’m not sure about this line of inquiry, although I have downloaded alot of fascinating literature on the veil. If I have time, I will revisit this.
2. GOD IN SPACE. In an expressionist splurge on photoshop I have designed a series of four large paintings of ‘Icons in Space.’ They are a ‘mash-up’ of worlds that I love. Loving the landscapes of Mars, Moon and Venus and other science fiction themes, ie the skies of deep space, and also the beauty of the byzantine figure. I will enjoy working on these, and hope to finish them by July. I’m not going to show you the designs online, you’ll have to visit me in my Christchurch studio if you want to see them… : )
REFERENCES (to be completed)
Lossky; 1944
“The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross”
Starr, 2012. Review of Veiled Images at the Akkron. Rretrieved from http://starr-review.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/robert-stivers-veiled-images-at-akron.html
Uácinowicz, Jerzy; 2010. NEW LIFE OE ICONS IN ARCHITECTURE: APPLICATIONS VERSUS SYNTHESIS. Faculty of Architecture of Biatystok University of Technology: Bialystok, Poland.
Don’t Be Afraid of Your Own Voice
1. Five principles of inspiration for sacred art creation.
- Acknowledgement of Divinity
- Love of Wisdom, as the essential basis of civilization
- Spiritual vision as the life-breath of civilization
- Maintenance of the revered traditions of mankind
- Understanding of tradition as continual renewal
These are five of the main principles of the Temenos Academy – which seeks to give space to poets, artists, writers and thinkers who subscribe to the belief that we are firstly spiritual creatures with spiritual needs which have to be nourished if we are to fulfil our potential and be happy. They also have a journal devoted to the arts of the Imagination. ‘Temenos’ means a ‘sacred precinct’.
2. A few of Artist’s Kirsty Deetz’s writings on the “Artist’s Guide for True Engagement in the Creative Process”. I’ve just chosen a few to avoid complete plagarism. But I recommend you read them all here!
- Lazy Boy Recliner on the Edge of the Great Abyss
Be comfortable with not knowing what you are doing. - Sisyphus Says
Be willing to start over any number of times. - Order out Chaos
Organize your time obsessively. - Knievel’s Leap
Take risks in your work. - The Voice of Terror
Don’t be afraid of your own thoughts.
REFERENCES
Kirsty Deetz, 2009-2012. Lazy Boy Recliner on the Edge of the Great Abyss. Retrieved from: http://www.uwgb.edu/deetzk/writing.html. University of Wisconsin–Green Bay; Wisconsin, USA.
The Temenos Academy, 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.temenosacademy.org/temenos_work.html. Kent: UK.
The Assumption of the Golden Record
An artist who has consciously decided to ‘Paint God’ is forced to ask at every step ~ can it be done?
I wonder if it is inbetween these places of light and dark, in the boundaries between the ‘hidden/shadow’ and the ‘revelation/present’ that is the most interesting place to seek and work. This place, between the darkness and the light, is full of richness ~ tis neither one nor the other. I can swing on the fringes of God’s robe and explore! In this place I can see God in Everything, and love the ritual and mystery of the Church, but I can also look and see God Nowhere – I can even say that forbidden word – Atheist – and honestly ask that question – does God exist? A real problem, because the tiny kernel of faith I possess is always, immediately, and simultaneously confronted with a mammoth terror – the scientific statistical possibility of our aloneness on earth. Our little blue planet, in an eternal galactic dark. I wonder where is God hiding in all this? I think it’s a great place to start ~ with terror ~ the Terror of Aloneness. The terror is real and faith reflected in that dark, is somehow more colourful, with multi-dimensional possibilities.
This video, a slightly mediated compilation of found footage primarily from NASA, is my response to the pathos of the human condition: The deep loneliness we all share, alone here on this Earth. We send our greetings out to the aliens in space, in every language, reaching out in a vain, almost comedic hope of NOT being alone. We share our music, images, codes, formulas, science. This probe has been travelling for over 40 years, it is only just leaving the solar system, about to enter interstellar space. This is the farthest physical reach into space of all known humanity. Two bits of space junk. It is a bit sad, slightly pathetic. But actually if we were to accept this ‘aloneness’ of humanity as a uniting force, as husbands of the Earth and all her creatures – then I feel that maybe we would appreciate how important is is for us to ‘just get along’ a bit better perhaps? Take some responsibility.
![G. Barnes, (2013) Origin Orante Alone: She Whose Womb contains Him Whom even the Heavens cannot Contain. [tempera and gold, unfinished]](http://gaylenebarnes.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/img_1507sm.jpg)
“One must abandon all that is impure and even all that is pure. One must scale the most sublime heights of sanctity leaving behind you all the divine luminaries, all the heavenly sounds and words. It is only thus that one may penetrate to the darkness wherein He who is beyond all created things makes his dwelling” (Dionysius the Areopagite; sourced from Lossky; 1944, p. 27)
Yet it is the journey that is key. Our desire for assumption into the unknown. Our wish to travel between realms. This is the place we can dwell, and explore. The place artists inhabit ~ at least until revelation.
FURTHER READING
Lossky, Vladimir (1944). The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press: New York.
Between the Hidden and the Revelation
In my artwork I have been layering materials, seeing into cracks, peeling back surfaces, exposing origin layers of ‘chaos’ beneath the paint – perhaps trying to get to the bottom of something ‘hidden’. And I have also been painting traditional sacred medieval icons, where the revelation of God is open, ‘present,’ revealed – where there are no ‘shadows,’ where heaven is directly engaged, where large eyes of saints and prophets stare boldly, directly, unashamedly into our own broken souls. Creating sacred objects that have a long established formal communication regarding God and faith.
Gaylene Anne Barnes 