Immortality
Finally – it’s done …well almost totally definitely…
About the work:
I wanted to keep this piece of work in line with the other “Inside of Me” paintings i.e. both abstract and restrained and I think I have achieved that goal. In creating it I wanted to depict a double-entendre – a celebration of recovery and a death both at once. For this reason I wanted to evoke religious places and rituals and have appropriated symbols from various religions to symbolize the passage from one mental condition to another. The background ground (Indian yellow) represents saffron that is the most auspicious color in Hinduism and symbolizes the Supreme Being. The structure or composition of the painting is intended to conjure up images of temples – for example the columns represent the Greek Parthenon and the scroll is a reference to the relics found in funerary chambers, specifically Egyptian tombs. The white gauze is intended to recall the Buddhist ritual of offering “katas†or white scarves at official ceremonies. In this painting it represents purity and healing and is juxtaposed against what were once pristine white cigarettes, now entombed.
On the scroll I simply wrote the words “Thank you for not smoking†over and over again. It is such a powerful sentence and such an understatement. It sounds like an a simple act, a simple deed but it is extremely hard and deserves celebration.