SUN BREATHING (2017-2019)

The observation and charting of biological rhythms is a recurrent theme in my work . Inspired by the recently discovered atmospheric phenomenon induced by the sun, of the rhythmic expansion and contraction of Earth’s atmosphere on a nine-day cycle. This ‘breathing’ corresponds to changes in the sun’s magnetic fields as it completes rotations once every 27 days. 

A window blind, a common household object, placed in the landscape itself alludes to the cartographic system. The viewer accesses the landscape by looking through this portal. The grid form activates, the network of lines function as a tool for arranging and organizing the information. It lends a democratic character to the composition, a demarcation of space into numerous equal units engaging the entire surface area.  

Sun Breathing continues experimentation in perceptual experience. Working in the en plein air method as in the earlier series, I painted the blinds in situ ‘mapping’ a given area with a grid form, but the practice began to evolve from painting onto an object within the landscape into using the landscape itself as the surface on which to paint. I was now charting the contours of the foliage with my hand as I painted it. 

A dialogue developed between the resulting pairs of images, a study in contrasts, the same scene both with and without the blind, the dichotomy of control and release. I began to see that the inherent binary nature in the very act of breathing was being echoed. In the words of Indian scholar T. Krishnamacharya: Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God.  Spending many hours in the landscape while I have made these pictures has always felt very much a communion with nature and with spirit.