Acrylic on stretched canvas, ready to hang.

Signed on the front.

My newest work that I consider my most magical work to date. This series uses an intuitive style of applying paint and emotion with different implements and pushing things to the brink in order to uncover what the work is about. I devoured the book “The Courage to be Disliked” in the week I was working on it. The philosophies have been life affirming. A paradigm shift that has been happening for a while in me but these teachings have spelt out in simple language, ideas that ring true to me at this stage in life. Adlerian philosophy. Adler was up there with Freud & Jung but has a very different take on trauma that I will not attempt to explain here and he was more about simple dialogue in the way that The Ancient Greek philosophers engaged with ideas. He talks about not treating life as a line or goal (like climbing a mountain) but rather as a series of dots or a series of moments. A dance. No destination. Neither past or future exists. We don’t have to live in line with any story we have of ourselves. In that way it is freeing. We have choice. We assign our own meaning to life as individuals and as cultures. An experience of hardship could be an opportunity to look ahead and think “what can I do from now on?” I like his teachings as they examine the individual in relationship to the collective and ask how we can contribute. But it is not an ableist view. We can contribute thru acts but also thru being. It is not even the individual’s task to fully understand our contribution but it is our task to find self acceptance. The artwork breaks some rules I am supposed to follow but following rules doesn’t get me the magic I seek. I am following inspired teachings but listening at all times to my own intuition. Art making and sharing are the ways I am making meaning out of my life. They keep me in action and moving forward.