One cannot develop a sense of wholeness, without being courageous enough to venture back and forth between known and unknown territories. Eventually, all shrinks down into a singular, hollow receptacle through which a loving essence can flow freely.
‘Unio animae’ is an art piece that encompasses a conceptually visualized map of the soul. It unifies elemental opposites and holds paradoxes that create the life-tension between the inner and outer world, conscious-unconscious, masculine-feminine energy, darkness and light pluralities and pours them into one unified experience of the whole and eternal non-dual Self.
The artwork also holds quaternities such as psychological functions, alchemical elements, and ancient symbolic ‘directions’. It shows an airy window, a landscape of the inner world. In it, multiple inversions just like the inversions of a growing fetus, create an interconnected abstract realm of the numinous that is exposed by a withdrawn curtain.
The inner landscape is divided into sky (persona & air), sun (gold & fire), sea (unconscious & water), and land (creation & earth). A triangular funnel connects and points to a singular gate between the conscious and unconscious realms. What is within the limits of the funnel is semi-conscious and accessible, what is visible at all can be made conscious, but what is beneath will stay beneath.
Along the central axis, our inner soul figures, dream characters and shadows can move up into consciousness and sink back down into oblivion. Yet all is connected by the illumination of the circle, the whole Self. We are connected to our own local collective cultures’ sub- and unconscious notions, yet connected to the entirety of the world. There is no separation. I call it the clustered collective unconscious and jokingly the World Wide Web (colloquially known as ‘the collective unconscious’).
The window through which we look into the soul is a manmade construct yet it is also a symbol of the eye that sees. To bare our truth, the curtains have to be removed – often by what seems like a fateful blow, that may replace a candle’s glow with inner shine.
Title: Unio animae / Tabula totius anima
(Lat. Map of the whole/unified soul)
Process Information:
Painted on loose canvas and mounted onto MDF wood board using archival quality, ph-neutral (acid free) PVA glue.
The artwork ‘Unio Animae’ was painted in autumn 2024 (October)
Size: 100 x 120 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas, mounted on stretcher frame
Varnish: 1 x Liquin varnish, (1 x natural sealing varnish (matte, removable with turpentine))
All artwork is archival quality, meaning the artwork withstands discolouration and the test of time. Certificate of Authenticity included. Delivery, framing and mounting services can be arranged.