One thing in another – 05-01-19

In my egyptian series I try to excavate treasures from the past, like in this drawing One Thing in Another. An example of this series is my drawing ‘An Archeological Memory of Bettie Page – 13-11-18’ which kicked off the series.

Egyptian Art

Like I said before I see strong resemblances with Egyptian art that presented human bodies in quite an abstracted style. When I saw the reference picture of the female back I thought it to be fit for this series. I kept it quite cubistic rather than execute it in my roundism style, keeping it more in line with the Egyptian way of rendering bodies.

Secrets Hidden in the Title

As a rule an artist has to see different things in a motif he or she will use for an art work. Just as will be the case with tasting wine one simply cannot compare the motif with what it should represent. Like comparing the taste of wine with wine itself, associating the motif with the motif is futile and brings forth no real insights.

Dissociation

My idea is that an artist should dissociate him or herself from the motif and associate it with something else. This way, either surrealistically, impressionistically or whatever ism may be applicable, the artist can get hold of the subject and forge it into something new. Thus, creating goes way further than mere copying.

Life and Death

A couple of years back I came to realize this principle might be applicable to life itself too. After all, we are only a couple of steps away from death, like Egyptians knew all too well. But isn’t life preceded by death as well? Unfortunately and to the best of my knowledge I have no memories of my being before I started this life.

Consciousness

I have read a lot about consciousness, did a lot of meditating throughout the years. Might it be so that death is a friend that sometimes pays a visit and is it not so that the core of our beings is dead stuff anyway, whether you are a materialist or a believer. What is this stuff made of? Only waves and our consciousness createst he collapse of the wave function, like Quantum Mechanics teach us. I read all these articles and they keep on stating that through our consciousness we create the physical world.

More than Meets the Eye

Perhaps there is more than meets the eye and the non-living eternity gazes through our eyes into the material, temporary world. One thing in another. After all, what is stuff actually but subject only entropy, wasting away until every elementary particle has collapsed into oblivion after a googolplex times googolplex years from now. Yet it is here and the fact that I write this story proves entropy is not he only trip. There can be more. One thing in another?

Graphite pencil drawing (Pentel 0.5 mm, 3B) on Canson Bristol paper (21 x 29.5 x 0.1 cm) - A4 format)

Artist: Corné Akkers