QCP catalogue
June 2011 exhibitions
“things beyond resemblance” Theodor W. Adorno / Hullot -Kentor, R., ‘Things Beyond Resemblance,’ 2006 Columbia University Press.
There seems to be a compelling semblance featured in each artists work. A somewhat strange psychological signifier has been stimulated by an inherent culture and re-defined by a new-founded orientation. A strong interplay of order and disorder, and placement and displacement is undeniably evident. A disruption or an interlude becomes the catalyst. These artists share a resemblance. By addressing different aspects of orientation, they re-examine both the imagined and the observed.
Alana Hampton: Underwaterworld
Alana Hampton’s clever tampering and deconstruction of the natural, is undoubtedly compelling. Her works, hinge at a strange juncture, a melting point where the underworld meets the visible. These works carry sound to the silence. It’s a contemplative space, tracing one of nature’s most powerful forces being the transition of tidal time. To be underwater is to become internal, isolated from sound, and estranged from the human sphere, as we know it. Here Hampton’s narration lends itself to the examination of our internal dialogue void of time, and order. Although alluding to images of rivers, mangrove swamps and nature’s own beasts, Hampton’s fragmentation of the natural seemingly denies the literal.
Her vernacular is intelligent, floating in a world that bridges two aesthetic styles being both the physical and its manifestation. Hampton anchors the spectator into a realm of unknowingness, a powerful intersection that examines nature’s own relationship, the outer and the inner. These works become a romantic mediation.
http://www.qcp.org.au/exhibitions/previous/exhibitions-2011/album-642/91
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
i have always learned from trees
s the largest plant on earth, the tree has been a major source of stimulation to the mythic imagination. Trees have been invested in all cultures with a dignity unique totheir own nature, and tree cults, in which a single tree or a grove of trees is worshipped,have flourished at different times almost everywhere. Even today there are sacred woodsin India and Japan, just as there were in pre-Christian Europe. An elaborate mythology of trees exists across a broad range of ancient cultures.
All it has experienced, tasted, suffered:
The course of years, generations of animals,
Oppression, recovery, friendship of sun and - Wind
Will pour forth each day in the song
Of its rustling foliage, in the friendly
Gesture of its gently swaying crown,
In the delicate sweet scent of resinous
Sap moistening the sleep-glued buds,
And the eternal game of lights and
Shadows it plays with itself, content.
- Herman Hesse, 1877 - 1962
The course of years, generations of animals,
Oppression, recovery, friendship of sun and - Wind
Will pour forth each day in the song
Of its rustling foliage, in the friendly
Gesture of its gently swaying crown,
In the delicate sweet scent of resinous
Sap moistening the sleep-glued buds,
And the eternal game of lights and
Shadows it plays with itself, content.
- Herman Hesse, 1877 - 1962
Trees serve as homes for visiting devas who do not manifest in earthly bodies,
but live in the fibers of the trunks and larger branches of the trees, feed from
the leaves and communicate through the tree itself. Some are permanently
stationed as guardians of sacred places.
- Hindu Deva Shastra, verse 117, Nature Devas
but live in the fibers of the trunks and larger branches of the trees, feed from
the leaves and communicate through the tree itself. Some are permanently
stationed as guardians of sacred places.
- Hindu Deva Shastra, verse 117, Nature Devas
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
Izumi Shikibu
This reminds me of Cohen's .. where the light gets in "there is a crack, a crack in everything, that's where the light gets in"
This particular poem is one of my favorites in its use of the moon as a sacred metaphor. The blissful state reveals itself as a shining light, as a luminescence permeating the still field of the mind. There is a sense of light from an undefined 'above,' silence, a fullness of vitality, and deep rest.
In sacred poetry, particularly in Zen poetry, this is often expressed as the full moon in the night sky.
The moon is the individual consciousness that shines only by reflecting the constant light of the sun, which is unbounded awareness. Individual consciousness, like the moon, waxes and wanes, sometimes bright and clear, sometimes dark.
When the moon, consciousness, is full, it is round, whole, complete, perfectly reflecting the light of divine awareness. The full moon is enlightenment. It is Buddha-mind. It is the soft light that illumines the land below when all is at rest.
With this understanding, reread Shikibu's poem. Do you feel the power of the statement beneath its beautiful words?
When she says she is "Watching the moon," she is describing the deep meditation practice of witnessing the radiance of opened awareness. To do so "at midnight" carries the double meaning of a late night meditation (which is often the best time for deep contemplation), but midnight also suggests the depth of nighttime, the great Void. She perceives the enlightened mind shining quietly within emptiness. There is nothing else present but the light of the moon. There is only awareness.
She specifically describes the moon as "solitary" and "mid-sky." In this profound communion, the awareness is recognized as being absolutely alone in the sense that there is no 'other,' nothing outside of its sphere; it is "solitary." And it is the center point of being; it is the heart, it is the core; the moon is "mid-sky."
When we stand silently bathed by the light of the moon at midnight, we finally experience our true nature. We know ourselves "completely" -- all of the seemingly disjointed and conflicting parts of ourselves are seen to be parts of a unified whole, "no part left out." We are the wholeness.
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/ShikibuIzumi/Watchingmoon.htm
In sacred poetry, particularly in Zen poetry, this is often expressed as the full moon in the night sky.
The moon is the individual consciousness that shines only by reflecting the constant light of the sun, which is unbounded awareness. Individual consciousness, like the moon, waxes and wanes, sometimes bright and clear, sometimes dark.
When the moon, consciousness, is full, it is round, whole, complete, perfectly reflecting the light of divine awareness. The full moon is enlightenment. It is Buddha-mind. It is the soft light that illumines the land below when all is at rest.
With this understanding, reread Shikibu's poem. Do you feel the power of the statement beneath its beautiful words?
When she says she is "Watching the moon," she is describing the deep meditation practice of witnessing the radiance of opened awareness. To do so "at midnight" carries the double meaning of a late night meditation (which is often the best time for deep contemplation), but midnight also suggests the depth of nighttime, the great Void. She perceives the enlightened mind shining quietly within emptiness. There is nothing else present but the light of the moon. There is only awareness.
She specifically describes the moon as "solitary" and "mid-sky." In this profound communion, the awareness is recognized as being absolutely alone in the sense that there is no 'other,' nothing outside of its sphere; it is "solitary." And it is the center point of being; it is the heart, it is the core; the moon is "mid-sky."
When we stand silently bathed by the light of the moon at midnight, we finally experience our true nature. We know ourselves "completely" -- all of the seemingly disjointed and conflicting parts of ourselves are seen to be parts of a unified whole, "no part left out." We are the wholeness.
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