ONIRICO / DREAM PORTALS  ( 0 - 7 ) 

When the artistic imagination is truly free, the  incessant journey through forms and visions can construct portals for waking dreams to release their energy, weave their texture and delineate their contours.  Portals offering spaces of encounter for dream formation within the viewer. These principles are illustrated by the eight offerings of ONIRICO, which are inspired by the four elements of the natural world, celebrated in art and thought since antiquity : AIR, WATER, EARTH and FIRE. Offerings composing a trajectory through both Creation and our human psyche.

Let's begin the journey :   First in line but way before recorded numerals, Portal Zero tells of star-dust seeding the oceans, with reminders of the mythical Sky Serpent from Australian Aborigines originating the physical universe.

Portals One and Two, under the sign of Water, present two distant episodes of our humanity :  joy in the sharing of youthful vulnerability and individual striving to swim free from constraints which enmesh our potential.

Under the  unconquerable sign of Fire, Portals Three and Four display life-giving modalities of incandescent energy, first showing flame upon rising flame of our powers of inspiration, then the kinetics of love within couples or perhaps the tension between light and shadow within the individual soul.

Now is the turn of Earth :  in Portals Five and Six, we witness performances of trees, the first being juvenile and whimsical, whereas the second has perhaps seen storms on the way to maturity.

And Portal Seven, bookending the series with Portal Zero ?   In defiance of all convention, it is either a crossbreed between a bird, a fish and a tree or a previously unknown treasure of Art Nouveau, dreams of art being in the mind and optic nerve of the viewer.

A visual autumnal meditation, FLYING IN FALL shows forest leaves descending in a burnished flutter, trees chattering in a nearby grove, while an unknown bird strives higher on a flight to a distant Spring. As evening falls, we gaze on this bucolic abundance while our Summer memories too float down into dusk and we resolve to have soul fire for Winter. 

Version Francaise :

En tant que méditation visuelle, ENVOLS EN AUTOMNE dévoile des feuilles de forêt qui tremblent dans leur chute mordorée, des arbres qui murmurent  intimes dans un bosquet tout près, tandis qu'un oiseau inconnu s'évertue à monter au zénith vers un printemps très au loin.  Quand s'approchera le soir, nous contemplerons cette bucolique richesse, alors que nos souvenirs de l'été soupiront sur le sol du crépuscule et que nous préparerons au tréfonds de l'âme le feu mental qui nous fera traverser l'hiver.  

The threshold of flight is not yet flight.  The mythical bird in this painting, awakening from a mosaic stillness and finding its solid framing now open, is poised to engage with space and to reinvent the now.  Several other winged companions are eager to follow her into the unknown.

Version Francaise :

Le seuil de l'envol n'est point encore le vol.  L'oiseau mythique de cette toile, s'éveillant au sein d'une mosaïque décadrée, s'apprête à se mesurer avec l'espace pour réinventer sa vitalité actuelle. D'autres compagnons ailes surgissent pour le suivre hors de notre vue dans l'inconnu. 

ALBUM OF LOVE is a space/time  symbolization of a love relationship throughout the years. In the intimate center, we find the couple in tender and protective embrace. Then, radiating ever outward,  each frame is an epoch of their narrative. At further reach, we enjoy the soothing ripples of infinity.

Version Francaise :

ALBUM D'AMOUR symbolise à travers le temps et l'espace une relation d'amour d'une destinée double.  Au centre le plus intime de la toile, un couple en une étreinte qui les protège. Puis, par étapes successives, chaque cadrage est une époque de leur narration existentielle. Enfin, aux bornes et au- delà, les ondulations rassurantes de l'infini.

In ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology, the Ouroboros is a giant serpent or dragon  devouring its own tail, signifying the recurrent and cyclical renewal of cosmic and life-cycle events.  Here, we see a whimsical avatar of this archetypal figure, ensconced in its own cocoon half-way between mountains and grassy falls, like an earth spirit winking at the viewer and inviting him  to reflect on the infinite mysteries of manifest reality.

Version Francaise :

Dans la mythologie égyptienne et grecque, l'OUROBOROS est un serpent géant qui dévore sa propre queue pour signifier le renouvellement cyclique d'événements autant cosmiques qu'existentiels. Dans le tableau actuel, un avatar amuse de cette figure archetypale, serti dans son cocon natal, fait un clin d'œil à celle qui la contemple, et l'invite à méditer sur les infinis mystères du Reel.

This companion piece to Ouroboros is an original interpretation of what the illustrious poet Goethe named so powerfully in FAUST " das ewig Weibliche " ( literally, the eternal feminine ). In this painting, the number 8, signifying infinity, becomes the feminine face of cosmic energy which both expands and contracts around a mysterious and self-generating center.  Life-giving strands connect the center to the totality in every direction assuring the  fragile constancy of Birth.

Version Francaise :

Ce tableau, qui donne la main à Ouroboros, se souvient avec originalité de la phrase de Goethe dans FAUST, à savoir " das ewig Weibliche " ( lit. L'éternel féminin ). Ici, le chiffre 8, fléchant la notion de l'infini, devient le visage maternel et idéal d'une énergie cosmique et divine qui irradie et se contracte autour d'un centre qui se génère lui-même. Des fils donateurs de Vie relie ce centre à tout ce qui est dans de multiples directions, soutenant ainsi la constance fragile de la Naissance.

POWER-STROKE

If awe is usually vertical, power is often horizontal.  When AWE-STRUCK is turned on its side, the figure gazing upward in astonished contemplation has now become erect and is thrusting forward with virgin power to encounter the beauty that space has opened up for their dreams of conquest and fulfillment.

Version Francaise :  

PUISSANCE

Si la reverence étonnée rejoint presque toujours l'axe vertical, la puissance se manifeste souvent à l'horizontale.. Lorsqu'on change l'angle d'approche de AWE-STRUCK, le personnage cloué au sol par sa contemplation hypnotisée est à présent debout pour se lancer de toute sa force primordiale afin de se mesurer à la beauté que l'espace offre à ses rêves de créativité et de conquête.