Metanoia

The title of my new series of paintings ‘Metanoia’ is a word derived from Greek meaning “changing one’s mind”. This mental shift is explored in the work through the use of semi-abstraction which encourages the viewer to enter into a visual state of limbo, where the brain attempts to pull the image together, to make sense of the recognizable parts, but instead is left with an unreliable shifting surface of altering states and metamorphic structures. Carl Jung also used the term ‘Metanoia’ to indicate the spontaneous attempt of the psyche to heal itself of unbearable conflict by melting down and then being reborn in a more adaptive form. This alchemical mental process, often intentionally brought on in shamanic traditions through hallucinogenic journeys into the liminal realm of the subconscious, arises in the work as structures fall apart and reform, dark into light, earth into air, day into night, solid into liquid, figurative into abstraction, and vice versa, capturing the turbulent moment of transition between one state and the next.