Free People

Start date: Saturday, September 6, 2008
Event is ongoing: Until Monday, September 29, 2008

This series of work began when two friends of mine became mired in anger--a malady of the spirit. They sought relief by trying to rearrange the circumstances they saw as the cause of their anger (spouses, employers, friends, etc.). Today, three years later, one of them is stagnant; the other is friendless and homeless.

While they were in the initial nip of the wringer, so to speak, I produced the first two paintings, and the journey began. Although, my friends furnished the beginnings, the series quickly took on a life of its own. I soon realized that all of the Free People are actually self-portraiture. They represent a mirror, ever reflecting my inner world, through the events I encounter in the outer world.

All these People are Free, but most of them don’t know it yet. They feel tied down. Some Free People feel isolated and alone. Others are so at one with life, that they’ve overcome the limitation of seeing themselves as individuals. They have joined in awareness of their surroundings to such an extent; it became impossible to portray them as different from their environment. I could not determine where “they” ended and their “place” began. Some live in the past and fear the future; others live in the now and have no fear of yesterday, today, or the hereafter.

Most have only one eye, in the conventional sense of the word--though they have closed up spaces where vision might have been and may some day reawaken. The spiritual eye is “one” and empowers the person to see beyond the sense experience. The closed mind of others renders them unable to see inside where the truth lies unrevealed.

I hope you see something among them that makes you feel the mystery of the present moment. With the sense of time moving through you--you feel yourself living in the pageant of experiences designed to expand the consciousness to ever-greater realizations of life without limits. - J. Lynn Kelly