Balance

Balance

We walk a line daily working the balance between what we know as scientific fact and what we feel we just know to be true. This painting examines this apparent dichotomy, equating them. The cast acrylic spine in the centre contains various symbolic objects representing the crossover or intersection of those ideas.

Balance began, as so many of my paintings do, around continual conversations with Laura over coffee. It usually begins when I call her to go for coffee because I’ve got some ‘thing’ going on in my sketchbook that I need to throw around. Most of the time it revolves around science and theology, politics, genetics, and ethics. Flipping the sketchbook around between us as I draw pictures and diagrams, (and she corrects my perspective), she adds her thoughts to the mix, we take the pen out of each other’s hand as one comes up with a brainstorm that “no, it has to be written down now, so hand over the pen”.

Working with these comparisons and connections, I decided to return to a life-size canvas , to really force me back to a much more physical way of working. In the beginning, I found it very difficult, struggling at times with a hand that would not always co-operate, but I really needed to dive in with the same intensity that was going on in the coffee houses where Laura and I would meet.

To me, science and religion seem to occupy similar space, and so I find it fascinating when people seem so completely invested in making one “right ”, at the expense of the other, as if there were no room for any ideas that may seem divergent . This painting divides itself along that dichotomy. Religious imagery on the right, balances with scientific thought on the left, combining in the spine.

On the left panel, letters CGAT, which are representative of the components of DNA, cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine. In the background I have drawn a series of circle, which form patterns including the flower of life from sacred geometry. The (grid) pattern sets the tone for the logical, scientific approach. Everything on this side is pristinely drawn with as much accuracy as possible.There are references to how we  see, perspective and colour.

In the right panel, I use the same grid as an underlying structure, but let it loosen up and appear much more organic, using a leaf symbol, referring to the artistic, creative side of ourselves. Where, on the left there is the schematic of a rainbow, on the right, is an interpretation of it. Similarly the daisy, on the left a rigid schematic but on the right a painting of it, yet it is still based on that left drawing.  There is an apple and rosary, referring to those deeper, sacred aspects of ourselves, where on the left is a clinical beaker. Both refer to ideas of worship and clinging to ideals.

Overall the effect is to bring those two sides of ourselves together through the spine and recognize the need for balance in all things.