As part of my Body of Work hand in for the completion of unit 1.2 on this Master of Arts Degree, the second and third paintings in this series were incomplete at time of submission. Over the break I completed these and am not only very happy with the result of each of them, but am also really pleased with the overall effect of hanging them next to one another as a set/triptych.
Each of these paintings were made over a series of sessions. During the making of these, I used a combination of techniques before, during and after the making: Channelling, then meditative Journeying, making with Stardust, then observing.
Channelling entails meditating on a specific element (e.g. a piece of bismuth, or a stone) whilst holding it in my palms, and then ‘breathing’ the essence of that element onto the painting before commencing the work on that piece.
Meditative journeying is a more non-specific method of meditation where I would use a meditation technique to take myself to the cosmos and observe and experience space and the universe at large. The objective with this type of meditation is to remove myself from the ‘mundane’ day-to-day earthly happenings and thoughts, and instead zoom out into a more universal mindset, observing our place in the cosmos. Earth, after all, is yet another cosmic body moving in space. I feel that it’s important that we remember that.
Observing the night sky from earth, looking up at the stars, it is easy to feel small; isolated and far away from space, as if space is something other, something ‘out there’ so far away from us. But the subtle change in mindset towards the realisation that as earthlings we are in space, very much a part of it, is an important one. Space is not far way out there, instead, we are inside it; a part of it; an interconnected and entangled part of the greater whole.
Making-with stardust is the physical act of working with stardust ingredients – ingredients on the Scientific Periodic Table, most of which are cosmic ingredients formed over millennia in space as a result of the evolution and death of stars. Stars are born, live and die in an ever ongoing evolutionary process. They often die in cataclysmic events where they explode and go supernova. During that process, elements are forged as if in an alchemist’s fire: elements such as carbon, magnesium, gold, zinc, hydrogen, etc. Pure oil paints such as Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue contain these elements, as does pure gold leaf. Working with these art materials, knowing that their ingredients are older than the earth itself… there’s something magical about that! There’s something about it that makes one feel connected to something larger than oneself.
Debbie New 