A lot of conjunctions of styles I’ve been working on and combinations of media are going on in this landmark piece. It can be traced back to a drawing I made several years ago called Microscopic Works of Light, which is on my Facebook Art of eVan page. It’s the style I used for the tails trailing on behind each head in this piece which are extant of that earlier mosaic style.
My earlier mosaic styles convey organic, micro-organic, mythological, and esoteric themes. This piece here is a revival of that quality that still beckons expression from me. The two heads are like unidentified mythological characters meeting each other in a semi-physical state, coming face to face with one another for a meeting of the self.
Long ago, I’d read some of Edgar Cayce’s readings he’d given for clients requesting spiritual help and insight into their problems. In readings he addressed as karmic, he would often use the term “meeting of the self” to describe how karmic attachments a soul may still possess that wrap one back again and again into similar situations to attempt to successfully deal with. It’s also a paradox to meet oneself as oneself, so the self is often dealt with through others who reflect back the attitudes one must deal with in oneself.
While taking anatomy and physiology classes for the healthcare education I enrolled in, I became fascinated by how many muscle groups and nerve networks there are in the human face. Around the same time, I’d read some articles about mirror neurons and how we are wired to mirror peoples expressions and moods around us. So for example, if you start eating an ice-cream cone in front of me with my favorite ice-cream on it, I will probably start salivating. I’d be mirroring your activity in my nervous system, though I don’t have an ice-cream cone in my hand.
With this piece of art, I tried to illustrate my idea of cubism. My idea is to get similar perspectives of a certain object, such as a human head, from different sources. The idea is to cut up those sources into different shapes and fit them into the shape of a head again. This implies a psychological effect of different spaces and different times compiled into one tangible object, heads in this case. I believe that muscles and nerves hold memories, and those memories are assimilated from different places, different people, and different times, thus creating psychological chimeras from memory.
A chimera is a Greek mythological beast that is put together or created from different animals. So it might have the hooves of a horse, and the head of a lion for example. In today’s biological science, chimerism means that a single organism has cells with two distinct genotypes. For example, the two genotypes could be the hemopoiesis of two different blood types within the single organism.
My art evolved from using the mosaic style established centuries ago in early Christian, Late Roman, and Byzantine art. It evolved into this style I’m describing now, which is chimeric. The whole idea is the building of something—anything—from something small, elementary, and simple into larger and more complicated structures and processes. This pretty much what life does anyway. It also includes the breakdown, entropy, and decaying of complex forms, only to rise again in new forms.
Many enlightened souls have declared that the ultimate reality is oneness, and that all this separation we normally see is just an illusion of separation while we all remain in perfect oneness throughout eternity.
In order for anything to exist and for anything to be perceived, as we understand perception in our physical bodies, there has to be movement. Movement has to be accompanied by space and time. What creates what? What if all three of these elements of existence create each other in a triangulated continuum? Space is filled with things, even on the smallest levels, and things are filled with space on the smallest of levels.
In order for something to exist, it must be contrasted and differentiated with something else. This brings in the idea of Ying and Yang and primal creation. From complete stillness and unity, movement has to be initiated, and, in order for movement to be initiated, a fracturing of oneness has to be accomplished. Yet, the balance of oneness is still maintained by circular and cyclical movements. Thus everything is still bound to complete oneness as it pinwheels throughout the cosmos forever repeating cycles until oneness is accepted once again, instead of infinite illusions of separation.
I compare the idea of Ying and Yang and the idea of primordial movement to binary blackholes rotating around one another creating vibrations of gravity waves throughout the ocean of space and time, creating space and time, influencing space and time, tweaking space and time, like musicians and cosmic dancers filling an auditorium and stage with movements of life.
Specifications:
Title: Vis a Vis (version 7)
Source mediums: Water-based and alcohol based ink, and magazine and copy machine cutouts on paper as collage
Source drawing completed: 8/31/2018
Print medium: Hewlett Packard printer ink from Hewlett Packard DesignJet Z2100 printer on Hewlett Packard print paper (Note: print can be made with archival paper and printer if requested in which case the additional costs will be calculated and added)
Digital manipulation completed: 11/10/2018
Dimensions of print: 36 inches by 29 inches
Number of limited edition prints: 25
Investment of print not framed: $100.00
Investment of print framed: $550 (shipping included)
Contact me: evan_travnicek@yahoo.com
I captured this selection of a couple drawings I layered together because it emphasized this concept of letting the forces of nature do their things as I draw and create. Media have minds of their own often times I’ve noticed over the years. It first started with this notion of working with works of art I wasn’t satisfied with and not giving up and loving them anyway. Then it developed into this idea of capitalizing on mistakes as abstract expressionists showed me. Finally I realized I am a part of nature and I act upon and within nature as a natural force myself, so art just became this flow of letting all these forces of nature interact with each other and selecting material that gave me satisfaction. And so I share this satisfaction.
It’s called Pastel Ash because I used pastels to make strikes around the macaroni shape. I digitally amalgamated another drawing I made into this piece. It looks like some weathered trash stuck together you might find by the side of the road. Beside your fallible psychological analysis, I encourage you to find beauty in trash laying around. Maybe you could pick it up and use it for something, like a work of art.
Art of eVan 