Chaos & Order
Much like the chicken and the egg, one wonders which came first - chaos or order? Chaos reacts to order and order reacts to chaos. They balance each other, yet balance is elusive. In this series of paintings, I was thinking about the role of destruction and how necessary destruction is in order for anything new to exist. Perhaps a sort of destructive harmony is what could define the balance between chaos and order. There can be beauty in destruction. Without destruction, everything would be stagnant and unchanging. Stagnancy is really worse than death; death is not the opposite of creation, stagnancy is because it means nothing is moving. And maybe because of this somewhere ingrained in our psyche is the desire to destroy - to destroy something old in order to create something new. Those who cling, who stay attached to things as they are, who fear change and cannot relinquish control, will always be disappointed by life. It's interesting when we meditate that we are often trying to find stillness within ourselves, to quiet the mind. When there is too much chaos either internally or externally this seems helpful. But there can also be too much stillness. I don't understand why anyone would want to be in complete control of their reactions. To me, it seems to limit the capacity for pleasure, the ability to surprise oneself, and even to adapt and grow. There needs to be wiggle room, something unknown, some kind of ambiguous playing field upon which we can discover and explore and expand. A place where we can invite new elements in and interact with them. Where we welcome some forms of destruction and embrace desire over fear. Where chance has an opportunity to manifest something greater or necessary and evolution can occur. The white and blue in these paintings represent the interaction of chaos and order while beige represents stagnancy; where I create chaos I react with order and where I create order I react with chaos. Where there is stagnancy I react with chaos and then order. This process allows me to participate in the harmony and blending of both.
