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The illusion of space is of the utmost importance in Western painting
and corresponds to the Western world view of time and space. To visualize
a model of this illusion, imagine the picture plane as the present
or the window into space. Space and time is like a cube that extends
behind the picture plane. A horizon line defines the depth of space.
Lines can be drawn from the four corners of the picture plane to a
point on the horizon, forming a pyramid that represents time and space
as it recedes into the distance. The present is closest to the viewer.
As objects or events move further into this pyramid, the more distant
in time or space they are perceived. For centuries, this illusion
was based on a single perspective. By the early twentieth century,
in both physics and painting, this single point of view was becoming
too restrictive. It did not allow for the ever changing nature of
the universe. The painter Paul Cezanne started painting a landscape
as if he was looking at it from different places. The Cubist expanded
on this idea by constructing images from multiple perspective points.
They began to express objects as they might look if one was walking
around them. This expanded the understanding of time and space, but
it was still based on the picture plane being the present, with time
and space operating behind it. By 1950, some of the Abstract Expressionists, began painting the space behind the picture plane with infinite perspective points. Painters like Rothko and Pollock created a sense of infinite space, but it was still space that operated behind the plane. Artist, James Turrell, created the illusion of infinite space by actually filling a cube behind the picture plane with a field of colored light, a contemporary finale to the illusion of pictorial space started by the Italian Renaissance painters. In the Post Modern era, painters are continuing in their efforts to make pictorial space flatter and flatter. Images are becoming more like pages from magazines with the flatness of type attempting to eliminate the illusion of space altogether. But type, also a Renaissance invention, reflects the same linear world view of time and space depicted by the early renaissance painters. My organization of reflectors on a grid has a similarity to the field painters like Pollock and the flatness of Post Modern painting, but the intent is much different. I see the dots representing points of radiant energy that exist on a plane unrelated to the Western concept of linear time and space. The grid represents the eternal now, where events come and go. Events from the past or present are given equal location, none in front of or behind the other. Time and space is a radiant unfolding in which past events, as well as, events in the future are contained in the now. It is much like the Hopi concept of the Long Body. This concept suggests that the body contains all that happens in a lifetime. An old or middle aged person’s body contains experience from childhood through old age and beyond. A child’s body contains knowing of the future. The now is the unfolding of those experiences. All humans are part of the Infinite and the Infinite is a part of all humans. The Infinite is contained in each Long Body. An individual’s life is encircled by a wall of the mundane, the personal events that define the individual, as an individual, but the individual is connected to all other humans through the Infinite Self. This is the self that was present 10,000 years ago, the self that incarnates each body today, the self that will be here 10,000 years from now. The Infinite Self is a part of the concept of simultaneous time and space. It’s not that time happens all at once or that space occupies all of the same location. It’s that they are a part of the grid of the infinite now, wherein all events are interconnected and related. Linear concepts of time and space are Western mental constructs. It works to explain some aspects of reality, but fails miserably with others. Reality is divided into the seen and unseen worlds. The seen world is the world of the physical, rational, reflective and analytical. The unseen world is the world of spiritual, the subconscious, emotional, intuitive and symbolic. The now is the seen and the unseen woven together. Western linear thinking has difficulty penetrating the unseen world. Individual consciousness is separate from but also a part of a greater consciousness. There are many layers of consciousness, humans, plants and animals all have their own conscious planes. The earth’s consciousness contains and interacts with all of the conscious beings within her. In fact, all radiant points (solar systems to rocks) have awareness and each type represents a conscious plane. Simultaneous thought, space and time allows for one radiant point of consciousness to communicate directly with any other point. This is done not in the world of the mundane, but in the world of the epiphany, direct revelation, gestalt and intuitive insight. Much of our life is spent in the world of the mundane. Our mental constructs generally limit our access to an expanded awareness. We all experience times of incredible connection to the infinite but are usually unable to articulate them, express them or share them with others. The reflective grid represents a plane of the infinite now. It does create an illusion of space. Instead of operating behind the picture plane, as in the Western illusion of space, it operates in front of the plane, moving forward towards the viewer. As light interacts with the reflectors and with the push and pull of the colors, an interactive pulsating space is experienced. |
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