Jake Olson and I originally painted “Translation” live during Datsik at the skyway theater. I then proceeded to 3d print “Translation 2” by taking the original painting into blender, tracing it and using various methods to extrude the two dimensional work into three dimensions. The model was then sliced with Cura and printed on my deltaprintr and minimax.
Translation, Acrylic, 2’X4′ 2015
Translation II, 3d printed PLA and Spraypaint, 2’X4.5′ 2015
Myoe was a monk whom ate some mushrooms picked by a novice monk. The novice monk did not realize that the mushrooms he’d picked were psychotropic poisonous. Myoe was then assaulted by a mirage of illusion. Myoe, in search of the root to the illusion he experienced, found only deeper illusion in that the mushrooms were in themselves unreal and without finite existence.
Relatedly, Zhuangzhi awoke from a dream where there was no Zhuangzhi, but that he was rather a butterfly. Upon awakening he couldn’t be sure whether he was a man whom dreamed he was a butterfly or now a butterfly dreaming himself to be a man. Through the chrysalis of dream he could not be sure whether he was this or that or what was ”reality”.
Language is also not as simple as this or that. A word can mean many different things to many different people. The mushrooms Myoe ingested were similar to language, and Buddhism in the sense that these fabrications are intoxicating, provisionary and yet illusory. They point to the truth but are not truth itself. They act as a door, both a barrier and the opening to truth.
In this meditation, Myoe dreams himself to be Zhuangzhi, having a dream within a dream. When Zhuangzhi awakens and cannot be sure whether he was a butterfly or man, he was actually neither, but a dream within a dream, simply Sunyata.
Zhuangzhi was a monk whom awoke from a dream and was unsure to as whether he was a man whom dreamed he were a butterfly, or now a butterfly dreaming himself to be a man. My work explores the concept of the Butterfly Effect or rather the idea of interconnectedness through another mathematical algorithm called the ‘Hyperbolic Paraboloid’, which is a parabola that revolves around an axis to create an infinite surface existing within three dimensions. Zhuangzhi Dreams of Fungus takes the hypothetical twist in that Zhuangzhi dreams himself to be a fungus wherein all the other characters that he meets in his dream, though they appear as separate entities on the surface level, are all actually an extension of himself, connected by the mycelium. When Zhuangzhi awakens, he cannot be sure whether he was a man whom dreamed he was one with the entirety, or now the entirety dreaming oneself to be a man.
Zhuangzhi Dreams of Fungus, screen print and origami, various sizes. 2014
FaceForward is a Minnesota based performance art’s collective that I participate in. In this video you can catch me doing a little acroyoga in my art exhibition Liminal Cognition at the Gamut Gallery. I also did a little bodypainting for the video. Check out FaceForward at http://faceforwardmn.com/ or on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/FaceForwardMN
Newton’s Garden is a musing on the similarities of Newton’s Laws of Motion and the eastern conceptualization of Karma.
Newton’s Laws of Motion creates a deterministic universe wherein the future of the entire universe, down to the littlest atom, could be known due to interdependent causal relations. This universal theory states firstly that objects either remain at rest or at constant velocity, unless acted upon. Secondly that the sum of an objects force is it’s mass times acceleration and thirdly that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Buddhism has a similar law of action known as Karma. Western interpretation of Karma typically is “What goes around comes around” or “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”. That is essentially if one treats others in a good manner, they will be treated well in return or if one performs “bad” actions there will be an equal and opposite “bad” reaction. The true law of Karma is much more sophisticated than this interpretation. Karma is the law of Action, not reaction. That is not to say it is not a law of causality but that for every action, there will be another causal action. Karma thus accumulates and influences one to act in accordance, creating habitual patterns with exponential consequences.
To illustrate repetitive karmic nature, I folded repeating tessellations. I adorned the tessellations with mushrooms to convey the concept that Karma is all connected (through the mycelium) and that it grows. Every action is seeded and will equally bear fruit.
The POV series is inspired by the subject of point of view and how one frames the world.
Wherein the rest of the POV series displays frame corners framing various parts of imagery, POV; Escape frames nothing. One’s perception of the world is not true reality. This illusory projection of the self onto impermanent emptiness has the contrary effect of the action as to where one perceives to be separate from that which composes them. The act of perceiving is a limiting self-deceiving mirror mirage that occurs within the Ego. The Ego is imprisoned to living in the past. The present moment, the NOW, is free of form, duality, and a separate self. True reality removed from the five senses and the restless mind is the true self, the complete wholesome purity of Nirvana.
Tyler Hawkinson and I designed this mural which was painted live during a beerfest by ourselves alongside Phong Nguyen and Jake Eidem at Harriet Brewing in Minneapolis, MN
The POV series is inspired by the subject of point of view and how one frames the world.
POV Kaleidascape is inspired by the way which light passes through water and creates a rainbow depending on one’s point of view. People are essentially made of water and light (electrons) and thus essentially an apparition defined by a point of view. It has been said that a man is three things: What he thinks he is; What others think he is; And what he really is. Which is the truth? When a man is wrong about himself, and others are wrong about him, who is left to say what he really is? At what point in time can a man be fixed and frozen, if he is to live and grow?
Within the center of the sunflower, the seeds spiraling in a loose golden spiral take the form of a color blind test. The colorblind test suggests in itself the idea that we see the world differently and only some can see what is within. The image within is the caduceus, the staff wielded by the goddess Iris, whom is personified as a rainbow, the messenger of the gods, the connection to divinity, and the one whom feeds the clouds water needed to deluge the world. I also utilized the caduceus as it is the symbol utilized to represent Kundalini energy, with the serpents being personification of the Ida and Pingala channels. This piece was a breakthrough in my own personal meditation as I thought the POV series were studies on the sixth chakra, otherwise known as the ajna chakra or third eye. This sixth chakra has to do with recognition, imagination, visualization and perception. Perception being not reality, but how we limit reality. When meditating on the chakras I realized the seventh chakra, otherwise known as the sahasrara or crown chakra, is often depicted as a flower, a rainbow, the sun, or a mirror, all of which reside in this piece. The seventh chakra dissolves the illusion of an individual self and experiences true bliss in nonduality. Bliss is thus found within, so don’t go looking without. “That for which they seek is that which searches.” -Saint Francis of Assissi
Media: holographic papers, handmade papers, glassine, wood, metal, string, frame corners.
The POV series is inspired by the subject of point of view and how one frames the world.
POV: Inscape is inspired by the idea of how one attempts to divide, define and grasp the world. When one feels as a separate being they can access feelings of being in control of their environment and better yet, to become better then everything and everyone else in it. This sense of being a victor or successful, is as if trying to grab tiny bubbles of trapped air arising in a fountain. These bubbles arising can be as empty as any object, success or failure, the true value lies in what one does with it. This work depicts a boy composed of the same substance as the bubbles he is blowing. These bubbles raise into the air forming clouds and are thus suggested in time, to burst and lose their separation from one another. How one see’s the world is how one see’s themselves. What is with-in, is as what is with-out.
Media: acrylic, wood door, frame corners, metal, string, wood dowels, paper, glassine
Size: 8′ X 2.5′ X 1′
The POV series is inspired by the subject of point of view and how one frames the world.
POV: Cloudscape is inspired by the idea of looking at clouds and seeing different things through one’s imagination. Human beings, also being composed of mostly water, thus see each other and one-selves in different light and as separate beings, despite them all inherently being made of the same stuff. How one experiences an object or another person, is really how one experiences themselves.
Media: wood, acrylic, string, metal, paper, glassine, and frame corners.
Size: 2.5′ X 4.5′ X 1′
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