Cassie
Sympathetic Vibrations
I am using this body of work to communicate my exploration of consciousness with others. My spiritual practice colors these pieces, and has provided me with a substantial breadth of esoteric knowledge, from which I pull from to create these emotive abstractions.
I am using a visual lexicon of imagery- based loosely on Annie Besant’s theory of Thought-Forms – which includes rules I’ve created which correlate to my interests in theosophy, spirituality, and transcendentalist values. My research into theosophy has been crucial to this work and has provided me with not only new symbols to reference, but new spiritual views as well. With the creation of each form, factors such as color, viscosity, opacity, shape, and saturation are all considered.
I am working with the idea of visually inaccessible interior spaces like memory, feelings, and dreams and what occurs within them. I'm assigning forms to these astral things to create a visual language that can communicate my perspective of the inner world. The paintings' scale, background, and light qualities allude to them taking place in the same space.
These paintings provide me with a space and time to decipher my feelings and perceptions towards people who've impacted my life in various ways. The paintings allow me to take time for myself in order to process and decode my understanding of how I view the world. During the creation of the paintings, I meditate and take notes with regards to my relationship with someone and I begin to create forms and assign colors. I use the paintings to consider the different perspectives and roles others play in my personal and spiritual growth. I'm use my own inner sensibility to create a record of these moments of connection. The paintings require a lot of deciphering of my own emotions but do not require deciphering from the viewer as the paintings convey a sense of emotion on their own.
The scale of the paintings removes them from a theosophical diagram and instead shifts the context to a personal tool of connection. Three canvasses vary in size (5-8ft) allowing them to retain their individuality within the series. The Prussian blue delineates the paintings from where they sit on the wall, making each piece appear like a portal into a new space. I am using blue for its theosophical significance. It is listed as the color of noble and religious thought; it is also the color of Helena P Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine cover. Curvilinear abstract forms rest within carefully chosen color palettes, ranging from bright and clear, to drab and translucent.
The first painting created was the one with two brightly colored figured touching hands. In the place where the figures hands would be touching sits a radiant starburst colored with white and pale blue for spiritual growth and pure intention. The figures do not have a clear gender and are not recognizable. Each figure is colored with green and yellow to represent empathy and high intelligence. This painting was created about the connection with my partner.
In the second painting two forms rest in each lower corner of the canvas, one primarily blue and one primarily purple. Purple signifies a love for humanity and the pale yellow shows an intelligence with pure thought. The yellow form in the center of the canvas also represents intelligence but this time with a spiritual ascent in mind, as is shown through the use of a triangle pointed upwards. The triangle is seen in a lot of theosophist texts as well as transcendentalist works. The center of the work is a blue orb surrounded by starburst of pink. The pink represents pure affection untainted by selfish thoughts. This piece was also created about my connection with my partner.
The third piece features one small sad blue lump with a pink and yellow orb nestled within it. At the top of the piece looms a large curvilinear form with murky colors of selfishness and a dark black line cutting through its center. Encircled in the black is a bright yellow form if high intelligence. The black line appears to be holding the yellow from escaping and brightening the canvas. The lines connecting the two main forms are indications of greed and selfishness. There is also one dim line of affection connecting to two forms slowly dimming from each end.