Sense Of Oneness

As part of my nearly decade-long research of Identity and Time, this work gives voice to my vision of our current age of disparity and turmoil, while presenting a possible solution in the view of our Creator.

During the last 15 months, spontaneous images cropped up in my mind in an effort to cope with troubling current circumstances. With the evolving state of world emergency, I became aware that something enormous was breaking down the lives of millions of people - emotionally and physically. A new abnormality, made of geometric distances and automatic gestures, was taking up residence in everyone’s lives. The space-time was elongating and swallowing the seconds, minutes, hours, and days of each of us. Differences were widening. Similarities were being overlooked.

From these mixed feelings, a surreal landscape burst upon the horizon of my awareness. It hung like a vision to be caught.

Sense of Oneness comes to the world from the chaos of internal emotions. It progressively recomposes itself into a sanctuary of silence, full of sacredness, where human faces searching for answers play both perpetrator and protagonist. Their gazes, although imprisoned in burial spaces of isolation, seem to gather and mourn communally. Their views, unique and valuable, are collectively limited.

In its constellation-like structure, this sculptural painting represents a physical and psychological separation from everyday life - a separation that challenges identities. A removal that threatens unity.

The newly imposed boundaries, symbolized by 116 human portraits peeking out of 116 tin cans, speak the reality that each identity is bound by its own struggles and sees from its own perspective. Up close, it emphasizes differences.

However, seen from the viewer's point of view - hung vertically, faces facing theirs, about two feet from the floor with the top 1⁄3 at eye level - we get the "divine". We see as God sees - one collective work of art, all cans in the tapestry, ironically unified by our differences more than pulled apart. We see how similar each of those cans really are, and the faces in them, and we are forced to consider for a moment the beauty of the whole.

Sense of Oneness points to the Being who sees us as we are, and with His perfect perspective we are liberated to see things "as they really are". It is an open call to hope and transform our physical solitude into an expanded spiritual awareness. It shows in our differences we are the same and suggests an empathy native to a higher understanding.

Ultimately, we assume the celestial view of the I AM who decrees all men equal, for "all are alike unto God".