Memory and the Search for Sanctuary

My interest in creating artwork is to evoke universal memories buried within human consciousness. One of the essential human dilemmas is the yearning for, but inability to return to, the past.  I see this desire manifest in two ways: the nostalgia for a lived past, as in specific memories from childhood, and the universal longing for a lost age of civilization.  I am specifically interested in this longing for “the lost era” because it is a memory shared by many that none actually physically experienced.  The initial question that prompted this work is, “Why do so many people share the same realm of imagined memories?”

Imbedded within this quest for the bygone era is the belief that an earlier time and space contained a serenity that is now lost to the world. Within art, there is the potential to create a space that evokes this serenity.  I refer to this space as the sanctuary.  In this sanctuary, we become less conscious of the divisions between our time and another and more conscious of our small current within the flow of a greater story. Within the space of my artwork, I seek to create a sanctuary where a certain serenity is achieved through stillness and connection with the past. 

In my current work, I have chosen the sunken ship as a metaphor for this sanctuary for several reasons.  It represents our natural relation in harmony and antagonism with the most powerful element in our experience - the Sea.  The express purpose of the ship has always been to conquer the sea and use it for our own purposes. Yet the relationship goes deeper than a simple power struggle.  The sea is truly the most unchanging essence that we have to relate to and although we constantly ply its edges and surface, the bulk is impervious to anything human.

I envision the sunken vessel as the harmonious union of man and nature.  While a shipwreck is one of the most traumatic events nature can cause, its aftermath evokes such serenity that the trauma of the ship's sinking washes away while the ship gains a new life on the ocean floor.  One imagines the submerged wreck, far removed from the corrosive wind and rain that break down objects on the surface. Resting on the bottom of the sea, the vessel is transformed by the water surrounding it. A hundred years pass as if in a slowly exhaled breath.  The timbers gradually loosen and fall away as the ship sinks into the sand, creating patterns on the ocean floor to mark their decay.  The sanctuary emerges within this space.

The wreck represents a ruin from a civilization where nature and the man-made are merged.   Within its form is the phenomenal timescale of nature manifest in a comprehensible structure.  It contains all the romance of the sea voyage and the desire for the unknown set against the longing for home, family and comfort.   It speaks of the tragedy of a sudden violent ending without even a headstone to mark the passing.  The shipwreck is a remembered form that is beautiful in its image and haunting in its inaccessibility.

My artistic goal is to visually create a three dimensional space whose objects are deeply evocative of this sense of sanctuary and serenity.