Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0

Today's illustration is titled "Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0." I think it is a good follow-up to "Green Dance" for a number of reasons. Some of these I will touch on briefly in order to enhance the central point of the title work and, for that matter, this blog.

I titled the work "Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0" so that I could reference the work to Francis Bacon, the iconic British painter whose own search for reality and the sense that "we live though screens or veils" so influenced this work and my decision to offer it as an homage to that great artist.

For me, as you may have noticed, Art and Life are just two sides of the same coin. This painting makes that idea so clear that you can easily see what part of the work was done by life (meaning Nature, of course) and which part I did myself.

As Francis may have said in this particular case, Life provided the accidental armature for the work and I interpreted it in mutual partnership. You may notice that the eye and most of the anatomy of the central figure is actually the natural grain of the wood surface upon which the rest of the work is painted. The rest is my process to adapt the natural gesture of the wood to the reality of my own experience in the world and my grasp about what our world (Nature in particular) is experiencing as a result of our actions.

Many years went by in the completion of this homage to Francis Bacon, as the piece was worked on and reworked again. But, from the beginning the painting hinted more and more to being a kind of a mirror, an enchanted mirror existing as if under a magical spell cast by Merlin. Curiously, the work has the propensity that, when someone looks into its surface, it seems to have a way that mirrors the viewer's own anguish and despair in the privacy of their own conscious.

There is really no question that presently the outlook for civilization is gloomy. And, there is little doubt among historians and scholars that life in general has always had a tendency to be harsh, brutish and short. I'm saying that life has never been easy save for those intermittent instances that punctuate our drama with moments of joy, awe and fulfillment.

The relevance between this work and "Green Dance" is that, while business as usual continues on the surface, behind the scene there is a kind of anguish and despair about the amount of time left to do something meaningful that is suffered by those (thousands really) who are diligently working to solve the challenges we face. Our work is largely ignored. Our pleas in regards to the impending catastrophe that we are bringing upon our children and our world is often ridiculed behind unsupportable and petty arguments.

I've said before that it is useless to blame innocence for deeds committed under its spell. But, things are quite different now because innocence is no longer at work. The spell was broken by the reality of the kind we see in the mirror behind the veil of Planet Earth 1.0.

Our new Planet Earth 2.0 is in its infancy. Nevertheless, it is a revealing new armature upon which a new world can be built and is being built. As an artist, my job is to confront reality and to use creativity to deal with it. Fortunately, art has partnered with life as dramatized in this work and more clearly by the aims of Data A art in general.

Furthermore, this partnership is most promising because, at the end of the day when it comes to life and the myriad of ways in which it can be lived, Nature knows best. Besides, we are growing as a group everyday and we are beginning to meet people of the caliber who can move from behind the veil and join in the creation of the daring new world that is Planet Earth 2.0.

In my next postings here, I will begin to share with you in some detail of what I know about one very remarkable idea that makes the partnership between human nature and Nature, at large, possible and how that idea makes Planet Earth 2.0 a plausible gateway to an alternative future for our world.

If you desire a printable image of "Behind the Veil of Planet Earth 1.0" click here or on the image above.

If you are curious about Francis Bacon click here.


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