This series of twelve paintings displays a journey from innocent perception of reality, through an internal retreat exploring themes of isolation, darkness, conflict, and aimless wandering until finally falling into a new dimension of perception: finding the light again in a new unfamiliar world. The story arc takes inspiration from the Hero’s Journey outlined in Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’.
The sun shining on two friends, a girl and a golden retriever, playing by a lake with a lush landscape. This is a happy time. The colors are bright and rooted in reality, as a child may see the world.
The foreground features an empty plot of land with a tractor in the midground in front of a forested area. The tractor driving away from the bare field represents human destruction of nature on land. It is the heartbreak that damaged the youthful view seen in “Lakeside Memories’.
A train moving slowly at a train station in the middle of a body of water. This is the departure of the journey. The composition is from the Studio Ghibli film ‘Spirited Away’.
A light blue monochrome view of a wetland. This scene shows the view from a window in the train. Dawn has progressed with some time traveling. Reality is starting to distort a bit: The trees in the distance are of negative values, some features in the foreground and mid ground don’t quite follow the laws of physical reality. This is the view from the train on the journey.
This is the room on the train, a peaceful refuge from the chaos of the storm outside. Inside the room is an empty bookshelf, a piano in the shadows, a waterfall fountain, and a figure with only half of a body facing the storm outside.
A hostile sea serpent approaching a mass of sunflowers surrounding a mysterious diamond with the shadow of a person meditating inside. There is a huge bird shaped cloud appearing to move in the same direction as the sea monster and sunflowers.
Aftermath of an explosive conflict. Form is almost nonexistent as matter drifts into new space. A grand reset.
In the dark night in the abyss of open ocean, with a swirling hypnotic moon, a rain cloud and a hawk playing with a skateboard bring some light into the darkness with the joy of play.
A cloaked figure with a lantern wanders alone through the late night.
In a swirling cave leading to light with a steep cliff dropping from wavy water is a man paddling in a canoe. The man has dark, blank eyes with an expressionless face.
A silhouette of a woman falling with an organic backdrop reminiscent of a tree.
Vibrancy and light have returned, but in a new form. This garden is in a different realm than where the series started with “Lakeside Memories”. A bridge over the valley suggests that the journey is not over yet.
‘Relaxing in a Meadow’
16×20″ Acrylic on Canvas
From Studio Ghibli’s film ‘The Secret Life of Arriety’
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‘River Crossing’
8×10″ Acrylic on Canvas
Composition from the Studio Ghibli film ‘Princess Mononoke’
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