Emerging from a past work called The Path from Paradise, 40 Eyes portrays the reversal of the expulsion from Eden, a path symbolizing the way to a heavenly realm which has been opened to us. Each painting is a version of the same wooded scene, reflecting different seasons over the course of a lifetime in which the viewer’s sight is transformed with varying degrees of clarity and blindness.

 

As I seek to resolve each image, figures emerge and disappear. Light is opened and then dimmed. The original image and color palette is often lost. Through the process of painting, I braid together subject and materiality, abstraction and figuration, building up layers of light from fields of darkness.

 

Artmaking is a practice that requires unyielding hope in the process of transformation. It is said that “the human spirit hungers for knowledge—for entire, integral knowledge of Primordial Being, of Whom or What exists[1],” yet we must embrace the strange mystery of faith. Similarly, one must paint with hope, as endeavoring forward without full sight.

 

 

1. Archimandrite Sophrony, ‘Being’ The Art and Life of Father Sophrony