Pareidolia

'Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?'
T.S.Eliot

This is a rather untypical painting when you compare it with my other paintings.
Yet, it not an abstract. On the contrary, it is a view on branches and leafs of a tree, while sunlight penetrates through the greenery.
The branches and leafs are symmetrized along a vertical axis.
Styled this way and framed like an arched window, this may look like the stained glass windows of a church; And that’s no coincidence.
The many political and ideological isms that were put forward last century and this century, all striving to conquer human failings, neglect biology.
While everything they’re looking for is there. In biology. Everything. From communism over trick or treat to quamtummechanics. Everything. Every poem, desire, lust or thought is explainable through biology. The only real church is the church of nature.
As a somewhat explicit whitticism one might say that the future of mankind will be religious or won’t be at all.
I don’t mean religion in the classical meaning of the word here, it is just another way of saying that our world-view is the key for our survival.
And thus these thoughts brought me to the making of this painting that, because of its symmetry, leads to pareidolia: when looking at the mass of leafs and branches you will very soon start to see all kinds of familiar shapes. Little clouds, insect-like antennas,  small fragile bones like those of mouses, eyes staring at you. Rorschach test images a like, wich I did’nt put there consciously, but it’s nice they are there, since they form a link to an ancient way of worshipping nature and foretelling future.
The purely coincidental assembly of peepholes, barriers, straight lines versus crooked or twisted lines, open space opposed to impenetrable surfaces and tonal transparancy versus contrast lacking dulness can be used by our minds, consciously or unconsciously.
Depending on circumstances and with the necessary amount of life experience, one can translate the complex structure of carelessly thrown down twigs or coffee grounds into definitions of a problem, hence problem solving solutions. This is a technique that is narrowly connected with automatic writing, which also uses the widely underestimated powers of the subconscience.
Today our knowledge about averything is so elaborate that no living individual can grasp it all. At its best, we can now know very much about very little.
Most people will have to thrust science for their knowledge about climate, stars, atomic energy or DNA structures. Thus, their knowledge is actually a belief. But a belief without the instinct and skills of the old hunter gatherers.
My point is: our smartness evolves through the fluid of time. And today, we must be cautious not to become dumb and dumber.
No, those old sjamans were not necessarely clairvoyant, nor future tellers, but they were by no means stupid.
Meanwhile, in the now, the crystal balls in the painting’s frame light up a bit in the dark, as I filled the whole in which they sit with light emitting paint. Because also rationalism has the right to be a bit mystic.