UNCONSCIOUS EQUILIBRIUM - SELECTED WORK
August 16 - September 12, 2021
Transcendence found through a state of rest, balance and calm due to the equal action of opposing forces, in nature, society and within ourselves. UNCONSCIOUS EQUILIBRIUM features sculpture and paintings by Karen Yank, McKay Otto, Mary Dondero, Christopher Pendergast, Amanda Fenlon, Patrick Kana, and Richard Nocera.
Carl Jung described the function of the artist: As a human being, the artist may have many moods, and a will, and personal aims, but as an artist he is 'man' in a higher sense - he is 'collective man' - one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind. Art intuitively apprehends coming changes in the collective unconscious." This featured group of artists finds balance in disorder, influences in opposing forces, harmony in mundane daily tasks, and transcendent practices during chaos. In quiet solitude, these artists gain balance during a time when our world would suggest otherwise. Upon further reflection on meditation, and transcendence, the work on view finds a harmony through tessellations, a regular pattern made up of flat shapes repeated and joined together without any gaps or overlaps. These shapes do not all need to be the same, but the pattern should repeat. This work attempts to reflect these rhythmic, natural developing and reoccurring patterns in nature, reflected in tidal and gravitational forces, and how we as humans, react to with these powerful shifts - seasons, moons, tides - and our delicate balance. Psychologist Abraham Maslow sums up transcendence as the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.
Karen Yank, on her process and the title of her metal sculpture, Unconscious Equilibrium: "I meditate and empty my mind of other thoughts until my inspiration comes to me and I can see them fully in my mind's eye. These inspirations are usually informed by emotional nuances that go unspoken, so are difficult to title. I comb the dictionary for a word or combination of words that most closely capture my truly abstract and expressive original inspiration. With this particular sculpture, I used "unconscious", which is the part of the mind that is often inaccessible to the conscious mind but that can strongly affect behavior and emotions. Also, I used "equilibrium" to represent a state of physical and emotional balance. In another words, my inspiration encapsulates an unaware calm state, which is activated by unconscious mind." In writing about his work, entitled, Sandwave 2: Tessellations, Patrick Kana states, "The natural world that surrounds us is ever-inspiring source of form, surface and creative energy at both the micro and macro scale. Whether it is a specimen, topography, or view, familiar landscapes from our daily lives provide us with a sense of place and forge an element of our identity."
