ROOTS • PRINCIPLES OF DESIRE

THIS work consists of narrative mixed media constructions and large scale narrative paintings. Philosophically, I seek to comment on principle desire. I view this as a seemingly common longing for such things as place, meaning, and love. I use the iconography of various images and objects to represent these themes metaphorically. For instance, the apple (traced back to ancient story telling) is used playfully as an iconic symbol of desire. Titles are written as clues to help orient each piece. The tone can be sardonic or sincere depending upon the viewer's relationship to the Romantic Paradigm� (which I see as a constellation of idealized, traditional values and beliefs.) The ambiguity is deliberate.

Globally, the subject of desire is vast. An inescapable predicament of humankind is involved in the perpetual, transient cycle of having and not having. Buddhists cite desire as the cause of suffering, and avoid attachment to earthly things. In contrast, Westerners seek out desire-fulfillment by attempting to accomplish a list of socially accepted goals that are often grounded in acquisition. In each case, conditioning, tradition and social paradigms set the tone and pace of desire.

My approach to making art is an expressive manifestation of heart to hand. Heart is the metaphysical storehouse of experience, memory and recall. It is where faith resides. It is tied to the string of desire.

The process of uniting the external with the internal [by the action of making art,] slowly reduces the notion that the self is different from the world, and that the world is different from the self. —Patanjali I.41

ROOTS
Having been born in Kenya, East Africa during the rule of Jomo Kenyatta and the political uprisings against a form of apartheid, I was initiated into a world of racial and economic disparity at a very early age. My mother, born in Antwerp and raised in Brussels, Belgium during World War II, witnessed man's brutal inhumanities. Her detailed accounts of struggle and survival would keep me awake and wide-eyed many nights throughout my youth. My father, a Kenya-born British subject, distracted me with boyhood stories of chasing killer bees and running from carpets of deadly fire ants with his friends the native Kikuyu tribe's boys. His parents were among the first colonials of the British-ruled country. Bbecause of Mau-Mau uprisings and Kenya's impending rise to independence, my parents eventually agreed it best to flee the continent.

I was five years old at the time. I started school mid-semester in West Coast America with a plaid skirt and a shy English accent. I did not fit in; to me America felt like tract housing. My closest companion was a washed and combed mango seed I faithfully carried around in a size 6 shoebox. While other kids were combing the blond strands of their Barbies, I was coifing the fuzz on my seed. At night it lay with me on my pillow, and was privy to my most detailed 5-year-old dreams. It listened carefully to every concern and complaint and then expertly whispered solutions back to me.

Decades have passed and it seems I'm still having conversations with the Seed. Only now it is tucked in wall hung constructions and paintings, containing handmade things plus storylines and narratives of Existential ponderings. But one thing I'm certain, a seed is still a Seed.

Time is a succession of individual moments which gradually alters the condition of form. The quiescent forms are those that have been, the uprisen forms are those that are, and the indeterminable forms are those that will be. In all cases the substance is the same. —Patanjali 3.14

INFLUENCES
The East and West Coast Assemblage movements of the 50's and 60's with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, George Herms, Betye Saar, Louis Nevelson and Joseph Cornell—served as influence and point of departure for my work. The nostalgic and highly personal approach of Michael McMillen and John Frame later inspired me to expand the sensibility of collecting and arranging found objects and urban artifacts. Instead, I explore the use of handmade precious objects as a visual language specific to my experience. In doing this, I left the pulse of traditional assemblage behind.

MATERIAL AND PROCESS
The material and mixed media I work with are chosen for their inherent expressionistic and symbolic qualities. At their roots, clay and metal are earthbound materials. While clay evokes Earth signifier, iron-based metals often originate from fallen meteors. This phenomenon symbolically associates metal to a metaphysical realm. Using clay and metal together is another way of reiterating the philosophical union of opposites.

The use of oil glazes, patinas, encaustic and various other painterly materials and processes, lend a physical, tactile and gestural quality to my work. Photography, combined with traditional and digital printing techniques provide the possibility of multiples, patterning, and documentation. The layering of visual imagery and mark-making evokes a symbolic connection to past, present and future—or in other words, memory, recall and dreams.

CONNECTIONS
My goal is to acknowledge Absolute Intelligence as the driving quantum life force that exists in matter, consciousness and mind. The roots of my quest are found in Vedic Philosophy, Patanjali, Alchemy symbols, Hegel and Carl Jung. Each speaks of an interconnection between all people and all things. Each aspires to a greater understanding of universal consciousness and relationship to the Absolute. Most importantly, in their own way, each has shed light on a path towards peace, equanimity and knowingness.

Patanjali spun his philosophy from the 5,000-year old Vedic traditions of an Eight Fold Path. The path lays out a logical series of restraints and observances (yamas and nihamas) which guide the practitioner to a path towards yoking or yoga”which in layman's terms means the union of opposites. It is metaphorically represented by the sun and the moon, and is translated into all conditions and states of being—male/female, presence/absence, past/future, night/day, etc. The practice of transcending opposites yields a metaphysical interconnection between all things and all places. The ultimate realization is that everything folds into Oneness. I am you, you are me.

METHODOLOGY
I investigate and borrow archetype symbols from diverse historic and cultural backgrounds. The squared circle is an example of an alchemical symbol that expresses interconnection and wholeness. Alchemists considered the circle and sphere as emblems of the spiritual self, and the square as a symbol of earthbound matter. A squared circle represents the union of opposites. Ancient cities such as Rome and Jerusalem as well as classical, medieval and even modern cities have been built with this configuration. The symbol also evokes the mandala, an Eastern motif used for prayer and meditation. In alchemy, it is expressed as a quadratura circuli or the union of the physical and the metaphysical. I use the square and circle with these connotations in my paintings and constructed objects.

Another consistent symbol used throughout the work is the vessel form. It is a symbolic container of Essence. Each vessel is suspended outside the frame in order to evoke a vulnerable sensation of spirit. My intention is to confront the standard premise of Existentialism that asserts, existence precedes essence.I suggest the opposite, that is, we are first the product of our seed and second the sum of our experience. In other words, an apple seed beholds an apple and all the inherent qualities thereof.

CONCLUSION
I seek out and explore the sensuous and tactile qualities of matter. There is an attempt to manifest heart to hand by way of gesture and material. Through this action, the art object becomes a meditation on the principle of desire in its various guises and materializations. My ultimate hope is to acknowledge interdependence between all things past and present and to elaborate on an interconnection between the self, the world and the philosophical search for meaning.

HOME

©Michele Ogilvie, 2009 All Rights Reserved.