120306; oil on wood panel
“Perhaps one of the greatest riddles of human nature is this: today we are discovering that we are really beings of becoming inhabiting a universe of becoming. So why are we always looking for eternal un-becoming? (…) what if matter, ground and existence is nothing solid, fixed, dead forever, but a living and creative event?” – Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon
I love the painting but I don´t understand the quotation. Who is looking for “eternal un-becoming” and what does it mean, really?
To me, painting is much about seeing beyond concepts – which is difficult, almost impossible. Perception is ever-changing, infinitely subtle and transformational… while concepts are crystalline, clear and set.
The fixed concept of ‘a road’ tends to block my continuous perceiving of the multitudes of colours and textures, sounds and smells… blending with the landscape, measured by my own movement.
The quotation, as I understand it, points to this tendency; to a human desire to escape change – and responsibility – by clinging to established structures and supposedly eternal values. And more specifically, to religious notions outlining a spiritual world which is likewise fixed and set, once and for all.
I see. Then I couldn´t agree more.