The Virus / Love Text
This small series of paintings is dedicated to everyone affected by the deadly pandemic we are experiencing, and tries to bring my outlook and insight into the world's condition. The first in the series, "The Virus," depicts the virus as a figure, not as the invisible sphere covered with red and orange triangles we see in the news everywhere. I have made the virus a figure because ultimately we are the enemy who has contracted, spread, and proliferated this disease. It is our social habits, and in some cases, our government's lack of action and concern, that have turned us into the carriers of death and destruction. The virus is alien and has turned us into aliens.
The virus is painted to share the traits of nature, where brightly colored exteriors give a warning of the danger within. The Virus stands in a void landscape with the storm it conjures as a sole figure watches, also turned alien by its isolation and fear. The Virus is both bright and slightly seductive as it infiltrates the worlds of people, who, as humans, have a real need for contact, to express love, compassion, and caring. It enters and slaughters those who fail to restrict themselves from all that we have come to know as the human condition. The Virus represents every fear most of us have never had or dreamed of, yet has always existed as an outside chance, in a world ever more complex and full of chance. The textures of these figures act as an evolution of the techniques I used to combine the Apollonian and Dionysian, to bring what Nietzsche believed to be the ultimate beauty in art.
The figures and the landscape in these paintings are derived from experiments I had been working on in C4D using Redshift for extreme displacement mapping. I would like to thank Amanda Moore for allowing me to use one of her spectacular flame fractals as the map that defines the Virus. I will be working to finalize the ARC of paintings and the story they tell with "We are Stardust" to complete my observations as an artist of the world, perhaps forever changed, and the differences we need to address.
Nature chose to warn other elements of danger by giving many poisonous creatures bright coloring. This evolutionary trait has been passed along to my Virus as it looks across a barren landscape, devoid of life, and a world transformed by its existence. The Virus is not only colored as these examples but also utilizes the patterns found in these creatures to warn all others. While the warning is there, the Virus as a figure represents its seductive killing power as it attacks us from within, from being human, from wanting the contact that makes us human.
Love
This series of paintings is based on love. and the feelings it elicits. The electrochemical reactions to love in the brain, and the desire it causes.
We are here to evolve, learn, accomplish, inspire, and create. There are combinations of these elements that give us drive and will. No matter where we come from, what our status is, intellectual prowess, or position in life, I feel there is one more thing beyond the elements that makes most of us the same. Love. Beyond all the distractions and glamour, pain, and suffering, I feel we all want to love and be loved. I wish that you have love in your life and heart and that it attracts the love you deserve.
"Love is the Answer" is the first of the series and depicts the love of a couple as they affectionately lean towards each other. They are formed simply by the archway that defines day from night. A golden film that separates the dark from the light. Their love is universal and exists in the complexity that is the world around us. Each thermal whisp in the space-time of the scene is executed to visualize the wondrous complexity of even the simplest landscape. Know that the same complex fluidity flows within and throughout the space between your molecules, with each complex pocket formed by the movement of temperature and corpuscular movement. The world around us is a wondrous place, but just behind the veneer of our senses lies a world beyond the dreams of most.
Dali'Assumpta Corpuscularia Lapislazulina