With two hours to go before I'm meant to release a new work, "Shakti Rising," into the marketplace, I feel that it's a now-or-never kinda moment to talk about the work.
This is part of the Talismans series, a body of work where I challenge myself to create paintings that embody very specific energies or themes. For this painting, my focus was on Shakti (also known as chi, kundalini, the Spirit, etc) - the life force energy that flows through all things.
This painting is about POWER.
Like most people, I often feel like this world makes it incredibly difficult to be myself. I want to be raw, natural, guileless. I want to operate from the very center of who I am.
And yet, in an attempt to fit in or gain the approval of others, I often find myself being performative, without even trying. I think I'm being myself, and then suddenly, I snap into full attention, as if I'm waking from a dream. And I realize that for hours, days, weeks, I have been disembodied, somehow outside of myself, looking back and judging: my work, my appearance, my words, my actions. I use metrics that I don't even agree with to determine how valuable I am in this world.
And when I snap to attention and come back to my center, it feels a lot like Shakti Rising looks. It doesn't fit into any box. It's intense. The colors clash, merge, sing, battle. They overtake each other, they enhance each other.
No one would look at this work and say, "Oh, honey. That would look so perfect in the dining room."
It's not exactly easy on the eyes, nor does it induce a state of calm. Instead, it reaches down to the most primal part of you and asks you to stay there a moment, to be in your essence. To feel those energies that are only accessible when we stop playing a role, and embrace all parts of who we are: the light, the dark, the ugliness, the beauty, the chaos. Everything that is disordered and imperfect and unsavory. Everything that we know is within us, despite how we may try to hide it from the world or make it more palatable.
Why would we want to be in that place? Because. Here, in this gritty substrate, is where we find our primordial, vital energy. Here is the place where we find ourselves. Here, we find true insight - and all the truths we desperately seek, a wisdom that exists outside language. Here is where we find power.
This painting is about the power and energy that are accessible to us when we reside in this place, to look objectively at everything we encounter, and especially - when we have the courage to accept all of it, to recognize how fucking beautiful it truly is.
If you are interested in purchasing an edition, you can follow this link: https://app.manifold.xyz/c/Shakti-Rising
One owner of these editions will be selected via raffle to receive the physical work once all the editions are sold.