Windows of Light
Through paintings I am making an attempt to rebuild the image of the mythical, surreal and cosmic man. In one of these paintngs an artist has fallen asleep in despair in front of a canvas. He is holding a brush in his right hand, which is tied with the axons entangled in a complexly knitted neural network of the brain. While painting on a canvas the image of the jumbled network of the brain wirings he has fallen asleep. The hand has become so tightly bound to the neural network that he cannot paint any longer, and therefore, in despair, he has sunk in dream. He is seated on the brain stem, surrounded by the left and right cortex. The artist, the brain and the canvas, where the neural network is painted, are in turn, entangled in a cosmic network, which is formed of galaxies. He is dreaming of the return of the power, who will release him from this captivation in the brain, which, in turn, is entangled in the network of the universe in an incomprehensibly complex way. An angel stands behind the dreaming artist. She holds in her hand a magic wand of creation and directs the dreaming artist to move towards the cosmos.
This painting is the central piece of the project called “The Window of Light”. Beside it lies another painting where the man is breaking out of the captivation in a Hall of Time, where slaughtered sheep are hanging from the roof. He is making an attempt to escape the Darwinian slaughterer by breaking the glass panes that separate the Time Hall of Illusion from the realm where the Golden Buddha, surrounded by monks, is meditating about the transcendental world. Between these two realms lies a sea illumined by a golden orb. Beside that there is another painting titled “The Window of Light” where a man, sitting in a dark realm, is meditating. The canvas is divided into two worlds separated by a wall. Through the opening of a window existing on the wall, an intense beam of light has entered the realm of the meditating man. It illumines a head that spans the entire dark realm. Through this partially transparent head, the neural network of the brain is visible. The man meditates by sitting in the shadow cast by his huge head. On the other side, from where the light has entered the window, there lies an illumined realm of the senses covered by mountains, fjords and a sky burning in an ethereal sunset. Through the window through light enters to illumine his brain. The meditating monk gazes at the other side of the reality where human beings are swimming in the fjord filled with swirling blood streams.
The project “The Window of Light” is planned to consist of four such sections – possibly around hundred paintings in total. The ideas of the project rose out of the realization that, may be, delusion, what we all possess, is the soundest basis of meaning, if there exists any meaning at all! We are all prisoners of our own experiences and delusions. Without changing the genetic foundation of the individual life, may be, there exists no other way but to accept what one is, as a part of a biological specie, who carries an individual trait. To try to transcend, and seek meaning beyond this biological and existential confinement, may be, is nothing but meaningless.
The first section is about the encounter telling the story how God has entered the consciousness and gradually overpowered the will. It starts with the story of a child listening to the whispering coming from nature, which stirred his imagination to believe that someone “out there” was whispering messages to his mind. Then the imperceptible whisperer appeared as whirling waves stirring the mind and became an integral part of the processes generated by the brain. In this section I want to reconstruct the invisible being, who has appeared as a father, a friend and a guide. I want to go back to the memories and see in more clear details the “face” of that companion, who has baffled and puzzled me, brought experiences of great ecstasies, and walked by my side as an imperceptible shadow.
The paintings of the other section depict the existential drama since that encounter. This confrontation with the spiritual world has unleashed rich fantasies, dreams and imaginations as well as driven the mind to seek answers of the mysteries that surround life with the power of knowledge, critical reflections and scientific arguments. It has led me to search the clue of the mystery of the invisible world into plants, flowers, insects and molecules, in the laws of physics and chemistry, as well in the universe. With the curiosity of a child I have lifted every corner of the heart to look for the hidden world, which may lie outside the domains of science. This hidden realm has been source of creativity. It has inspired me to understand the working of the brain and the material basis of the mind, as well as revealed to me the incomprehensible realms of the artists, the musicians and the poets. It has elevated me to the sphere where I have seen myself as one with the eternal self – as a wanderer searching beauty and love as my way of coming home.
I have started “The Window of Light” by making the paintings belonging to the second section called “Creativity”. Here the cosmos is one with the reality of this room. Here I listen to the music where muses play the golden cosmic harp, watch the ballerinas resurrecting from the world of the dead as golden swans while welcoming the mortal eyes to the realm where there is no death and birth. Here winged white horse Pegasus accompanies the muses, who inspire the mortal poet writing about the immortal world. Here the sculptor hews out the face of musicians out of crystals while on the other corner of the crystal studio blood ooze from his torso.
The third section is about the existential crisis that follows the period of creativity. It is the story when the bewildered man rises against God and tries to bring down the spiritual world. The paintings of this section deals with the terror unleashed by a meaningless world. Despair and mental conflicts cloud his paths.
In the last section “Walking inside the Mirror”, the cosmos opens and a mirror emerges. The man sees an image of himself as multiple in One. He faces the formless world as himself imaged in the mirror as a man standing in front of God. In the mirror he sees the cosmic ocean flowing through clusters of galaxies in the great cosmic body to which all are parts. As he watches the cosmos, the biological world streams through the cells in the brain, and transmutes into the body. He realizes the presence of the Buddha-body of compassion and love, which encompasses all living beings.