Theta Painting. Damoah and Summers First Live Performance
We then started to paint feverishly. It was almost as if we were still in a trance. For almost an hour, I did not notice what was going on around me. It was a joyous and exhilarating experience. I felt free. During the time I was painting, I felt anything was possible and felt an overwhelming sensation of love inside me. You know that butterfly feeling, that rush and excitement of first love, or a first kiss… It felt like something similar to that, but with a sense of calm.
My piece. |
After the session was over, I was interviewed and asked to explain my image. If you follow me on my social media channels, you will no doubt have seen those funny buildings in my daily sketches. Practically every time I meditate for the purpose of getting ideas for work, I see those things.
An earlier drawing I did. |
They are buildings, but they are not ordinary buildings. They are living entities to me. They have belly buttons- or navels, attached to umbilical chords which reach out, trying to attach to people or things in the image. I think they represent THE system. Something to do with us humans being plugged into the system. But in most cases, the people in my images are not attached to that system- and when they are, there are other things going on which represent freedom from it, or an awareness of it. In this particular piece, there are butterflies (some thought they were flowers) coming out of the mouth of the man in the image, almost like a procession. Each of the butterflies is attached to the building entities by a very thin cord. But therein lies the contradiction. Butterflies represent freedom for a lot of people. Freedom and change. Metamorphosis. Think about it and interpret it as you wish… The butterflies appear to be on a road, but on the edge of that road is what appears to be a cliff face. A blackened dip down into nothingness. What that means I do not know. I just saw it and painted it.
Ben’s piece. |
We received some amazing feedback on the day. many people asked if Ben and I had some sort of spiritual connection because despite the obvious differences between our work, there were a couple of striking similarities, such as the blackened cliff face or hole in the ground, dipping down to nothingness. Many picked up on that. It is funny as we could not see each other. I had no idea what he was doing and he had no idea what I was doing. On inspection of the footage later, we often mirrored each others moves. Strange. Maybe somehow the meditation connected us on some unknown spiritual plane. In any case, we have spent a lot of time together and that naturally happens with humans. As you build rapport with someone, you mirror each others actions.