Connections

As I was looking for an inspiring yet not too challenging project for teaching a student with no experience in painting, I stumbled about my old notes from studying in Bauhaus style, which taught me a lot of elementary painting projects that are profound but simple to do. I loved this one especially: just dots in different themes, like cold and warm or dark and light or winter-summer etc. It inspired me to dot again, just to start a new painting that could have ended up totally different. While I was dotting away, which is quite meditative, I remembered a phenomena that i used to be fascinated by as a kid.

When I would stare into the darkness I could see tiny little dots floating about, emanating and dissipating into the wall, the chairs the table, bouncing off each other and creating the ilusion of shapes in the dark. It had me wonder what the universe is made up. In my imagination back as a child I saw that everything is made out of tiny little particles that float around and conglomerate to shape what we know as a chair etc.

Apparently science found that the smallest particle is a dot that is simultaneously also a wave. In Kashmir Shaivism they say that the universe is made of energy and consciousness and they are not separate. So consciousness being energy connects us all with each other, with the universe and beyond. Quite a difficult concept to behold and impossible to paint. Yet as I was painting this painting I felt it very strongly, this connection with everything and everyone.

acrylic on paper, mounted on wood board, H 22 x W 22 in (56 x 56cm)