Thoughts on "Via Dolorosa": Part 2

Apparizione della Madre (fourth station), oil on canvas

60" x 48", Rico '16

There is an inner light, largely unseen but not truly invisible.  I believe we are born with it.  It starts brightly because it is strong, perhaps not too far from wherever it originates. 

Resilience and transcendence are largely defined after the fact.  They need a baseline against which to be quantified, and the baseline often takes the form of crushing failure, loss, or defeat.  So there can be no true transcendence without profound loss, and loss/failure/defeat are not things to be feared.  Looked at this way, failure (and the like) offers us an opportunity for transcendence.  Resilience in the face of loss and disappointment is what enables us to define ourselves separate and apart from whatever event life throws our way.  Simply put, this is because resilience empowers us to write our own narratives. 

I got interested in the Stations of the Cross when I saw Barnett Newman’s collection of paintings by the same name in the National Gallery.  I love the story because it begins from a place of defeat and moves through agony, humiliation, loss and brutality and eventually to transcendence.   I’ve tried on a few occasions to tackle the theme in a series of paintings, but the time wasn’t right or the work wasn't there.  When I saw the Narthex gallery at St. Peter’s, I knew that if I ever had the opportunity to exhibit there I wanted to do the stations.

My style (if one can call it that) of painting is not about depicting events or trying to visually represent people or places or even actions.  This, combined with the fact that I consider myself secular, set up an interesting set of problems before the first paint ever hit the first surface.

I was born into the era of pop art.  Though I’ve learned to appreciate some of it, overall I find it either nihilistic or cheeky, and these are not the places from which I approach art personally.  I’m unabashed in believing that one of the reasons art exists and continues to endure is because it speaks to the spiritual, the universal, and the primordial.  It has the power to give image to that which exists unseen, voice to that which is unheard, and substance to that which we perceive as intangible.   These things are the measure of a culture long after civilization dissolves and fades away.  Empires rise and fall, but their greatness is only truly assessed after they crumble into dust and we sift out the artifacts of their culture.

What is vital to me is twofold: one, that I have to keep my channel open to the singular expression that is uniquely my own when making the work.  When doing this, the process is less about creating and more about discovering.  This is a much more rewarding and, dare I say, enduring perspective to adopt in the studio when making work.  Two, that the audience make the work their own, truly their own.  The former is achieved through artistic practice; the latter can only be approached through mindfulness and openness without attachment.   I’ve found that attachment is often an impediment to creativity.  Non-attachment frees the soul in a way that transmits energy to the hands in making.

So this body of work is increasingly (as I am writing this in the making of it) about that inner light.  The light which is, at times, enveloped in darkness and the Void, but somehow manages to reach us and reach others through us.  As I continue to make these paintings I am experiencing unexpected emotional depths and changing perceptions.