With our limited capabilities we usually experience meaningfulness through comparison – seeing one thing, in some inexplicable way, as similar to another. To borrow a phrase from Walker Percy, the best we can hope to do is to somehow fix the evolving meanings in time as ‘signposts’ for further contemplation and reflection. We shape sounds, movements, and images in a vain attempt to match the ineffable or, at least, point to it. We make (or find) things that, by their very nature, are not what we seek, but, nevertheless, are suitable to contain at least a few aspects of our experiences. We find objects or shape physical material – wood, paint, words – because we are partly physical and because it’s what we have.
In the arts it’s common to speak of an image, a sound, or a sequence of words as “capturing” an idea, feeling, or experience. ‘Capture’ is a particularly appropriate word choice since what we’ve done is to make something that holds the idea, feeling, or experience; that preserves it, at least for a while, against the ravages of time. What we hold can then be examined in more detail at our leisure. However, we soon find that what we hold is only a fragment – but, hopefully, enough to find our way or point us in the right direction. We have, of necessity, abstracted experience through reduction.
The work is layered – paintings built upon sounds, words, and other images. I recall a small etching by Rembrandt at the Uffizi many years ago – a Sacrifice of Isaac, and the only work that immediately brought tears to my eyes – the arm of the angel lovingly wrapped around Abraham as the sacrifice is averted – an image founded upon numerous encounters with faith, history, scripture, language, and other images – both natural and cultural.