My Credo as a Modern Mystic
Humbly, I have become a modern mystic. How so? Perhaps my digital art provides insight.
I think in terms of systems; I think in terms of Gestalt and find verbal descriptions constraining and inadequate to reflect REALITY; I perceive ancient wisdoms and their commonalities rather than their differences; I find myself being superficial and broad rather than reductionist and narrowly-focused; I sense the vastly greater and deeper realm of my/our emotions beyond our cortical activities; I marvel how we all are immersed in and permeated by LIFE in its infinite complexity; I am entirely comfortable with Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow; my motto is
I FEEL I AM
And btw. I also think
I am inspired by scientific deep thinkers and humanists like E.O.Wilson, who in The Social Conquest of Earth describes eusociality as our exceptional human characteristic (shared only with ants, termites, bees and wasps); I think about our inbred human social structuring as genetic tribalism struggling to adopt - and adapt to - a democratic social structure; I am in awe of Ursula Goodenough’s The Sacred Depths of Nature, reflected also in Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality; I respect the ancient definitions of the Seven Cardinal Sins and the Seven Cardinal Virtues; I am inspired by the Modern Mystic and painter Hyman Bloom, and I sense a similar genius in the painter Gerhard Richter.
I am lucky to love my partner because of herself, namely embodying a good head and a good heart. And I am lucky because she chose to love me!
Why then can I call myself a modern mystic? Because I not only feel comfortable in containing/experiencing all these interests and allegiances, but sometimes being able to bring them forth in my digital art.
My digital compositions reflect my modern mysticism. As an architect, I was trained to sense creative opportunities for designing a building by layering rough concepts on yellow tracing paper, one over the other, each new layer embodying something of its predecessor while also showing something new. Looking through the top layer to the next one below and perhaps to another one or two below that instilled in me the habit of “looking beyond”, “looking into” - in other words perceiving or sensing, thereby becoming inspired to creatively assemble and re-assemble floating concepts. I try to create such layered perception opportunities in my digital art.
Peter
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry