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It's not surprising that all great religions begin in wide open spaces. Buddha meditated and Shiva resides high in the Himalayas. Moses spoke with God atop Mount Sinai, and Mohammed and Christ traversed vast deserts all to obtain the essence of truth. Many years ago great explorers like Scott, Drake and Sir Edmond Hillary traveled far distances to fill empty spaces on the map and perhaps in themselves. We live in a time where it is becoming increasingly difficult to find patches of empty space on this earth. But there is still much to experience. And there is always a new way of presenting reality. For as long as I can remember, I've been an adventurer, traversing and transitioning through the meridians of life. And all along I've been searching for something. Wide open spaces facilitates this search. The silence and solitude, to me, reveal God. Silence is the best contact point with God, since God is always present, though beyond speech, images, and concepts. In view of this, it is essential that there are people who have the courage to reveal their own empty spaces, and who go forth in search of them. My current effort is ongoing and is called Wide Open Spaces. The series is made of mountain, sea, and skyscapes. Through it, I hope to express meditative and spiritual concepts of things absent of man and not bound by limits.... distance, the depth of space, tranquility, the sacred and the sublime I am awe struck by the sights and wonders and beauty of God’s creation. I am hopelessly attracted to beauty in all forms. Looking skywards or out across great distances to me reveal the gates of heaven opening. I attempt to mirror these experiences in my art : heavenly vapours and the movement of light, the sacredness felt ascending mountains, and the spectrum of blueness and light reflected throughout vast bodies of water. My paintings are the result of countless hours, weeks or sometimes months of solitude. Like navigating in heavy seas, they demand total concentration. It is only when I succeed in shutting out the rest of the world that my imagination takes off. The finished works are still only art, although to me sometime seem to be more real than reality. Here, inside is the same as outside, and allowing oneself to move into this world, our concept of wide open spaces becomes intimately related to our own experiences. In this way, Wide Open Spaces become like windows to heaven and are exactly the sort of place I wish for when I imagine a sense of the infinite, freedom and peace. We cannot envision eternity….. we can only move towards it. Then our souls open to the very limit of what is possible. “To build a bridge to heaven, you need eternity.
However, our senses are not capable of measuring or realizing anything
which lies beyond our possibilities, which is beyond our capacity
of realization. Our restricted spiritual abilities cannot gain access
to all that is. We should recognize these inaccessible realms as
the Beyond, as something we cannot reach; as God, as the Sublime.
It is as much a part of this world as ourselves — a part which
only artists succeed in approaching”
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