seeing upright

A universal spiritual principal I dedicate myself to is the ideal of neither desiring nor fearing any particular experience. The ways in which the world’s wisdom traditions express this ideal are numerous and varied. It is the ideal behind the notion of Acceptance, whether of Truth, or the Tao, or, God’s will. It is the meaning of Obedience and the essence of Humility. It is the Zen principal of Equanimity commonly expressed as Being Upright, a state of consciousness in which we neither lean toward experience in a state of desire, nor lean away in a state of aversion.

Much of my artistic practice has been an effort to embody this ideal in my work. I’ve asked myself what it would mean to create art that fosters being upright in the viewer. A simple answer would be to make representational allegories that depict the spiritual consequences of desire and aversion. But that kind of didacticism exploits fear and desire, encouraging those very states of being in order to manipulate the viewer into rejecting them. Such effort seems self-defeating. Work of this sort would be like the art school assignment of the photo essay, which I have little interest in because, as I get older, I have little if anything to say about the world.

The more difficult response is to strive for art that invites the viewer into a state of equanimity free of fear and desire. This means art that is valued less for what it refers to in the world, than for its ability to hold the viewer’s eye in a still point of contemplation. Knowing the nature of that still point seems the key.

The  questions easily leads to consideration of a commonly observed difference between trained and untrained (or primitive) art.

Trained art cultivates depth perspective, which has the effect—whether intended or not—of making the viewer aware of his individual point of view. We feel near to parts of an image and far from others. This can only happen if consciousness resides in a fixed position in relation to the image. The fixed position determines the ego identity. Where one stands in the world is who one is.

But while strengthening self-consciousness by affirming the ego identity, depth perspective has the simultaneous effect of reinforcing fear and desire. The ego tries to make near what it wants and make far what it doesn’t, the way a camera, for example, makes near what is important and far what is not. The ego is never still, I think. It is always fleeing from or grasping at experience. That is why trained photographic art might be best described as an ego with a camera.

Primitive art, on the other hand, generally de-emphasizes or ignores perspective altogether. The viewer sees near and far as the same, meaning the viewer’s consciousness is both near and far and not defined by the ego.

In a review of Obsessive Emulsion Disorder, a critic described the work as flat. I took this to mean OED minimizes the dimensionality, or depth perspective, essential to representational photography, which in fact it often does. Perhaps the critic got the point. Viewing an emulsion disorder can be akin to viewing a mandala where one’s eye is not moved three-dimensionally in the work in order to produce a reaction to its subject matter. One instead inhabits the work in a contemplative gaze, perhaps achieving the still point and seeing upright.