PORTFOLIO DEEP WATERS – Living the paradox
The hero’s journey begins in the zone of contradiction. Let’s delve into the theme of Matriarchal Aesthetics. According to Heide Göttner-Abendroth, the artistic visualizations should be viewed less as completed statements. They are more the picturesque byproducts of self-exploration in an ongoing process of self-realization. Like those in the series DEEP WATERS, which I also resume under the theme of frequency painting. In this process, I have developed a special technique that allows only minimal influence over the artistic outcome. Only the placement of the color droplets is possible. The painting itself is created by wind, rain, or external influences, for example sound frequencies. After the ink dries, there is exactly one question for viewing the image: What does it look like? A communicative dance with myself begins. It provides me with orientation in the cycle of the seasons. It also guides my relationships and artistic tasks.
It is an effort to live the process of Matriarchal Aesthetics. Yet, publishing the pictorial by-products generates a contradiction. that I’m discussing for over 30 years. What remains of the life-related practice in painting is ultimately an image. We ascribe artistic hypotheses, concepts, and goals to it. It also becomes an asset. What is continuously developed in terms of self-research and insight is now fragmented, systematized, archived, offered and sold.
Individual Mythologies and the processes of Matriarchal Aesthetics encounter through their externalization a necessary limit. The outcomes of these processes must serve a purpose. They fulfill function to preserve the identity and sustain the existence of the creator within the collective narratives of post-industrial society. The active individual constantly comes into conflict with external contradiction. It must show farbebekennen or their true colors to develop. This formulates what Joel Blackstock in context of C.G. Jungs shadow-work refers to as Living the Paradox. Grasping and transcending contradictions provide the deeper meaning of each myth and lend depth to art.
“Ultimately, the Jungian path of individuation asks us to embrace and live the paradox of the opposites, to hold the tension of contrary forces within the crucible of the self. This is not a matter of attaining a static state of perfection, but of engaging in a dynamic, ongoing process of differentiation and integration.
It requires developing the capacity for bi-vision, for seeing through the lens of both poles without collapsing into either. It means learning to tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity, to resist the temptation of one-sided solutions or premature closure. Above all, it means cultivating the courage to face and befriend our own shadows, to recognize that what we reject “out there” often reflects what we deny “in here”.
PETERS DENIAL 2023, Oil on Canvas, 100 x 80 cm
Carl Jung’s Shadow: Holding the Tension of Opposites in Depth Psychology by Joel Blackstock LICSW-S MSW PIP no. 4135C-S | Feb 19, 2025 |
FARBEBEKENNEN 