The Light of Inner Landscapes
Light is a marvellous, mysterious thing. So much of what we know about life comes to us through light. So much of human knowledge depends on the light we see. But I suspect there are many aspects of light that we cannot even begin to comprehend.
I’ve been painting for 30 years and usually, in official descriptions of the paintings, I would list my medium as, “Acrylic on Canvas”. But really, what I’m working with, is light— a sense of light. One of the most exciting things I’ve learned from reading Rudolf Steiner’s work is that WE CANNOT SEE LIGHT. We see reflections of light on the surface of matter, we see reflections of light in the substance of air and atmosphere. But we cannot see light itself. Light is a magnificent force that sends waves to us, through us, into us.
Forget that we are not really “seeing” anyway. When we say that we “see” something, we mean that our eyes are receiving waves which our minds try to make sense of. Forget that our eyes are capable of receiving a very limited range of waves. So I would say that what I do as a painter is to create a sense of light that rearranges the waves that go through your eyes— these waves go through your skin , through you (!).
I have been thinking about light for 30 years. Aside from soaking it up and eating it up all my life (it is the light that is stored in the matter that we eat that nourishes us). In the process of painting in these 30 years, I have been playing with and dancing with the light in space in order to emit a certain part of my consciousness into the waves of light force in the space where the painting sits.
The series, Inner Constellations, is inspired by an art therapy exercise called, The Breathing Sequence, which was developed by Margarethe Hauschka. The exercise is meant to move one’s consciousness forward through the process of creating 9 paintings that depict scenes from sunset to sunrise. The title of each painting bears the time-stamp of the time of day when that particular painting is imagined to be. But the series isn’t really about time. It is about light.
In order to portray the time of day in each painting, I had to think of it from the aspect of quality of light. The quality of light at 5:30 PM is very different from the quality fo light at 7:30 PM. It is important to note that I painted the paintings between 10AM to 2 PM, a period that isn’t part of what is supposed to be painted in the exercise.
What each painting really asked of me was to summon a feeling of light. It made me realize that so much of how we experience a day is determined by the quality of light we take in. All of our memories are associated with the quality of light in the days we live.
In the process of creating these paintings, I have come a little bit closer to understanding the magnificence of light. How, even in the darkest of times there is light somewhere. If you happen to be awake at 1:30AM there is light, somehow streaming from somewhere. You experience a different degree of light than sunrise, yes. But light never leaves you. The glorious Sun still shines its waves on our tiny planet, even at midnight. It reminds me of a time when I was telling my daughter, Mecca to sleep early because she had to wake up before the sun woke up the next day. And my little oracle, who was maybe 8 years old at the time replied, “ The Sun never sleeps, Mama.”
When you see the Inner Constellations series of paintings—and I hope you will be able to see them face-to-face , matter to matter, wave to wave— you’ll “SEE” how they play with light. You’ll sense a feeling of light, my consciousness mixed with Sun-waves, waves poured into the space where you stand, waves poured into you. I hope you find something in the light of these paintings that nourish you. Something delicious and enlivening. May you find something in the light of these paintings that also lights you up.