While this painting was conceived before I was reading Nietzsche heavily, it was finished while I am 3/4 through "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", and I am certain these readings had a large influence on the work.

We all desire the rapture of ecstasy, we all want to feel knowledgeable, empowered and satisfied. It is the feeling of the woman in this painting, and the feeling which drives you here to learn of her.

When I first saw the skeletal cage like fractal which was the inspiration for this painting, I immediately was struck with not only the feeling it depicts, but the rest of the imagery that would make this composition. While highly complex, the image also has a meditative quality, one that clears your mind as well as stimulating it....thus the Everything and Nothing of the title. The work also depicts other figures of great metaphor in the Nietzscheian world, the sun and the ocean, both givers and takers of life. 

The skeletal cupola itself carries much significance as it acts as both a crown and gives roots to the work. Its complex geometry and joints in some cases give birth to even more complex filler matter, which, has the structure of specialized bones. Bones which are found in birds and some flying mammals, that are geometrical masterpieces that through phenomenal architecture, maintain both the strength and lightness needed for their skeleton to fly. These structures allow for my figure to both fly, and be grounded, at the same time.

The work also is the first in a series where fractal geometry starts to give way to forms more fluid. To that end the blue and white intrusions of ink clouds at the base of the work are a sign of things and shapes to come, a road sign to the future. In the folds and billowing will be borne new imagery which while still being mathematically based or fractal, will provide completely new pictorial matter.

This painting was done in a large size to allow you, the viewer to be absorbed by it, to be sucked in and enter its world and emotion. To evoke emotion and to provoke thought are the artists highest goals. To bring you, the viewer, not only into the artists mind and world, but to initiate the cerebral chain reaction that can grow new neural pathways and create new ways of thinking for the viewer.

 

Below I leave you with some quotes from Nietzsche

​

“Art is the proper task of life. ”

​

“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.” 

​

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” 

​

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” 

​

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” 

​

“The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.”

​

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

​

“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”

​

A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us

“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.

​

One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art