The Inscending Spiral: Drawings I
Having previously pursued filmmaking as a side project, through script writing and the making of short films - including the Vimeo Awards 2010 shortlisted film 'Outside' - I have now chosen to intergrate those ideas into my main body of work. In 2005 I wrote a screenplay called 'Nirodha Point', a self-reflexive look at Hollywood, fame and material excess. With the intention of expanding the world created within 'Nirodha Point' I immediately started writing a prequel, but it's sprawling narrative failed to fully coalesce. As a result I have chosen to produce a series of drawings that will explore those ideas in their current nebulous state entitled 'The Inscending Spiral'. My past work sought to explore the dichotomy between the visual language of materialism and spirituality. Similarly within the narrative of 'The Inscending Spiral' I have set out to describe a world where the linear sliding scale between the superficial glossy world of materialism and the profound depths of spiritual understanding were in fact a closed loop. That the seeming chasm between these polar opposites, from the emptiness of the airhead Valley girl to the empty mind of the enlightened Zen monk, could be traversed with a mere step. Using the labyrinthine back streets and highway intersections of Los Angeles as a back drop, the multiple narrative threads follow the strangely skewed spiritual journeys of a Beverly Hills rich kid, a pornstar, a MMA fighter, an artist, a gang member, a celebrity publicist and a homeless bag lady. Underscored by the tremors of a looming earthquake and the machinations of a mysterious LA gang called 'The Labrys', the story turns around one central incident, a car crash, the first and only encounter between the two main protagonists, Aidan Kincaid and Rosa De la Cruz.