The imagery combined to make Illusion of Life was over 7 months in the making. Starting just beyond the jungle of Costa Rica, on a beach at sunrise during a sacred medicine ceremony, a golden scarab visited me. It was adorned with all kinds of gems and intergalactic geometry and it began weaving patterns between the waves and sand. This imagery stayed with me and I thought about it often. While visiting Jordan and Israel nearly 7 months later, this same scarab visited me, but this time it was accompanied by other animals from the region that I was in. There was a unity within the dream that was contrasted by the mentality of the people of the region. While working on the piece, I was thinking about the realities in which we live… comprised entirely in our minds by our own individual perceptions. I don’t think that these animals that visited me were speaking of actual animals, but more of a call to attempt to unite our own individual realities. The work isn’t about the physical representation of animals or the locations they are from, but rather an idea of being alive in a space that transcends time, connecting us all through a historical and loving lens.
Illusion of Life
36”x36”
Acrylic on canvas
September 2019