Sol

When I started painting my strange paintings, I had been influenced by an image that came into my head as a result of thinking about how to express anger. My anger had felt like it wanted to be creative not purposeless. Maybe it wasn't anger, maybe it was inspiration faced with thoughts or ideas that I did not like. In fact, I guess that's often what has happened in this blog: when I have felt angry about something I have written something about how I think about the issue. This does not eradicate the anger... that is something I need better to understand... but it helps me to understand it.

So, the suns or balls of energy I painted were as if giving life to the form that embraced them. Those forms were, I think, inspired by reading Entangled Life and watching My Octopus Teacher. In both cases - mycelium and octopi - the tentacles have their own 'intelligence' which is part of the accumulated intelligence of the whole. Decisions are systemic, not orchestrated by a central nervous system. I like that concept.

I mean, in ways of seeing society under the metaphor of a human body, the head makes the decisions and the feet do what they're told. That's not the case for mycelium.

At the top I painted a moon. The energy, the fire and anger and inspiration - becomes something softer and more ambiguous. I wonder what that means?