Abstract:
This project is a visual record of my own spiritual and emotional journey over the period during which the work was created. It was a time of profound grief and loss as well as newfound courage, strength and independence. The work is a record of what I experienced with my eyes, head, heart and soul.The work and philosophy of Paul Gauguin is discussed at some length because it helps to lay a foundation for understanding what I have tried to achieve as it relates to the history of art. Part of the legacy of Gauguin and his contemporaries was a gradual shift from traditional representationalism to abstraction. Artists made this shift because they felt that abstraction was a more universal language and also because they were concerned with the notion of truth. They felt that traditional academic representationalism was a trick, an illusion and therefore a lie. My goal is to create an art which is both representational and true. Gauguin spoke of two kinds of beauty in art: one which is the product of study and the other of instinct. I have sought to bring the two together. I am trying to show the essence of things which really happened. I rely on symbols to help tell the stories.