Nocturnes and Ocular Moons

Nocturnes & Ocular Moons are a series of drawings that explore psychological dynamics of the heavens and geological processes as contemplative fields. Currently, the ongoing series has over forty drawings, builds a collection exploring the relationship of imagined constellations, celestial manifestations and ocular phenomena. Each is a “considering,” which etymologically meant in ancient Greece to sit with the stars and see the whole cosmos. The drawings act as a logos, but also give night an iris to gaze back at us; hence, Ocular Moons. Night is both object and window. In the drawings I try to balance the illusion of looking at and looking into a night sky, space, and mind. 

All drawings are 2016 to present day, graphite and color pencil on paper, 10 1/2 inch diameter.

Piercing the Night Skin

“He beholds the darksome psyche as a star-strewn night sky, whose planets and fixed constellations represent the archetypes in all their luminosity and numinosity.  The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection...” ~Carl Jung, CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Page 195, Para 392.

Tiny fingers point toward the heavens with increased fidelity and wonder if all these stars we continually discover, catalogue and recount are mirror to our thoughts, shattered reflections of consciousness. Each experience we feel and have felt is tethered to a distant sun. Though we gaze up at stars, it’s useless to hold onto any single one luminous speck. Letting go under an ocean of stars is easier; the belittling quality of the sky is comforting. In spite of labels and observations, our sense of unity with the night sky as endless and indefinable remains undiminished. We are so insignificant under the Milky Way, and while knowing we cannot possess the stars, we still insist on possessing a self.

There is no room for art here, as there is no space for the vast mystery of a naked sky. The stars are erased from city nights. We no longer use the stars to navigate ourselves. We have exchanged direct perception for the fantasy and controlled access to the wondrous and exalted images gathered by remote eyes. Constellations have lost meaning and mnemonic reference in the public. We rob the night stars of their mythology in order to build precise glare—light bulbs—fire flowers, hung from ceilings. We beckon this power to illuminate our thoughts, yet in their luminescence blind our view of the grandeur gifted to us to inspire tethered waking dreams only suns can manifest by their considered distance. 

Study, learn, and label these ocular moons. Though we may create constellations from the brightest ones, archive them, transmit a heritage of overwhelming cultural wealth. Information to our children by logo: Big Dipper, Polaris, Orion, Cassiopeia, and on, and on, they remain untouched. Andromeda, “ruler of men,” M31, the nearest galaxy to Milky Way, can be observed like the pupil of an eye. She gazes back too, through our “privileged views” (telescope optics) uploaded to monitors, and then relegated to screen savers. Tare symbols from the skies and grind them to earth, dust and rock. Fortune-tellers till these fates, declaim asterisks, prophesize a culture’s ascension and what blooms may come. How little, how much. 

Narratives have shaped the world around us repeatedly, in the name of a god, in the name of providence, and technology. But currently, the very structure of our stories shapes the biology of the brain, and thereafter, primes it to be susceptible to the narratives we create. The self-fulfilling prophecy is a real function. Given this basic logic, it begs the question: what are we telling ourselves to shape the world? What narratives do we embrace?

At the core of my drawings is a desire to question as science does, but by embarking in the tradition of storytelling, and hopefully uncover the reincarnated symbols for our current day mythologies. Like Cosmology, which propose to discover a unifying theory explaining the laws of particles with that of galaxies, my drawings propose to unify imagery, in a visual vocabulary accrued throughout the cultural history of Earth. How to merge culture with landscape is the pivotal motivation of my project.  Presently, focusing on the astral landscape as a reflection of mind. For the fellowship, I would like to travel far from cities, to places with minimal light pollution. Specifically, to visit a few astronomical observatories in the US, Iceland, and Chile. And in such remote locals, try to bring back some of the wonder of the cosmos, as a reminder that we are, as Buckminster Fuller said, on “Spaceship Earth.”