Artist Statement
I strive to create imagery that bridges the self with the sacred as the source of meaning.
As one can discover through dreaming, it is possible to leave the recognizable imagery of the ordinary conscious world with its rational, linear, Cartesian based thinking processes and enter the non-ordinary realms of the mythic, the archetypal and the fantastic. These are the worlds of the collective unconscious which can be accessed through the imagination if one is willing and able to temporarily set aside the "known" and allow themselves to enter the "dreamtime" of their inner landscape.
It is believed by many that infants have thoughts before they have language. I believe they have images before thoughts. Even the undeveloped mind of a newborn contains the unconscious collective world of archetypes which as Carl Jung states are "inborn forms of perception and apprehension which are the a priori determinants of all psychic processes...". Accessing these universal archetypes through the a dream state while asleep or awake reveals the inner realm of the individual and collective Soul where all realities, known and not yet known, merge into the One. Creativity is the doorway to this inner realm. Dreaming is the path, art-making is the vehicle and, the imagination is the fuel of connection.
My creative process takes place in the waking dream-state. Through the use of music, meditation, ecstatic body postures and rhythmic movement, I create an energetic field on the canvas using acrylic paint. Next, I sit focused on this morphic field sensing what lies waiting in the various lines, shapes and tonalities of the paint surface. I believe these images being revealed, to me and through me, are not personal but mythic and archetypal in nature. When I spend time with them, they have the power to evoke deep memories long forgotten, familiar yet not identifiable. Not unlike the imagery of the sleeping dream state.
By empowering viewers through an archetypal awakening to the pulse of life as seen in these works, a type of ancient wisdom becomes available to them. The mind may struggle to make sense of what it has encountered as the personality works to maintain control and safety. However, assigning meaning is not always necessary. For it is the power of the artistic image to transform consciousness - to expand it to new levels of awareness and beingness. - D. Coyne