Disconnected

Disconnected

The painting provokes the viewer to think about both the journeys and the destinations of humanity, its creatures, nature - our source, without which can actually not exist, by juxtaposing two roads, two paths or more accurately a street and a road.

Not being too obvious about the paths, in order to contemplate and discover the messages. Enticing viewers to dig deep and connect, about the subject.

It's not just about physical paths, although the effects are absolutely physical in the end. The street “feel” and a bit of tar road, with broken pieces of a tortoise shell, is a reminder of how it ends. Tar roads and concrete walls with desperate messages that try to remind viewers to connect with nature, respect nature and allow it to exist. The chaos of the streets, which on the surface can seem so orderly with all its structures and systems, but the truth is something else.

On the other hand is nature with its wild disorderly branches and grasses and a lot of “dirt”, yet, it's the order of a deep, underlying, perfect system, designed to sustain life without control. A healthy mind and perspective can appreciate its beauty and harmony and the peace one feels when you connect.

The processes and messes are left intentionally for transparency and integration reasons. Changes happen subtly and systematically. The hardly processed tortoise signifies a life not lived and also looks ghostly, like a spirit on which we place our hopes.

It's important to see it all, as the words remind. In a world where we are often reminded not to look at what's not comfortable, because it's negative or other excuses, not to face the hard truths of this life.  Reality is something else. It's having a proper look at everything, recognizing mistakes, learning from them and making better choices. You are only truly free, if you can look at something, deal with it, without it eating at your conscience. This is because you rest assured that you are doing what you can. Fixing up and not forgetting the life that's lying there on the road that paid for the lessons, for everyone to learn from. It's not just about seeing and acknowledging. Restoration is important. A lot of it. As ignorance and denial reigns another kind of wild.

One flower is simply not enough. A bush full of tortoise berry flowers neither, but it's a start.

Life is precious. Let's slow down. Think and tread carefully. Remember that the systems that we created are unnatural and chaotic and elements like greed and power consumes and destroys. Look at it. See it and choose to put less poisons into nature or even life. The vicious cycle. Think about destruction and life, the living, the lives that pay, when you are in the process. On the road, slow down and appreciate the journey and stay humble, knowing that we are subjective.

We are in trouble and we are finding it hard to slow down. It's something each and everyone needs to control within themselves, for everyone and everything else, also all to come.

Life is better in awareness in any case. It's full of appreciation and peace as opposed to competition, stress and anxiety. Choose right.

 The subject is a humble, slow, almost disregarded, small tortoise, camouflaged, nothing spectacular, yet undoubtedly a valid and true symbol of sustainability within time, dating from 200 million years ago, the Triassic period. They survived the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, 66 million years ago, that wiped out most dinosaurs.