Fragments Of Awarness

This is my second painting called "Fragments Of Awareness". Please click on the picture to enlarge it to full size. (c) 10/04/2009 by Don Shetterly (all rights reserved).

When I started to paint this, I had a different image in my mind, but of course staying with the moment, I allowed the painting to go where it needed to go. It turned into something much different than I expected, but it still has the intricate layers interwoven within the brush strokes on the cavass.

The background color actually turned out to be a different shade of red than I initially had chosen, but I love it and I almost didn’t want to add anything to it. However, the background is full of dimensions itself and many layers. There is so much depth and texture that it could very likely write its own story.

Of course the central part of this painting is the face in the center. It is the generic face of a person with one eye that is partially open to one dimension, and the other eye that is partially opened to another dimension. They are not balanced and that was done on purpose because we never see things fully as they are. All things that come into our view are filtered by our experiences, what we have been taught, and what we have learned as well as where we are currently at in our lives. The face was meant to resemble a person’s face, but yet stay mysterious as to all that was going on. Each person, who sees this painting will come away with a different view, and I’m not going to impose my view upon anyone. I want everyone to see what they see in it, not what I see in it.

This painting was done over a period of several days, and images were added at different times by color, as to how I felt at that given moment. There are some images that resemble birds and animals, while others are just marks and shapes without much thought as to what they were supposed to be. There are angels in the painting as there are in everything that I paint. You may need to look closely to find them. Again, I’m sure each person looking at this will see different things in each of the shapes, based upon their life and what those shapes or objects represent to them. I did try to strike a balance between color and placement, but leaving the pattern of the shapes and objects on the canvass to be random and in a placed format. I wanted them to have a life all to their own, but to be separate while being part of the entire painting.

Fragments of Awareness is the name I got as the painting came to completion. In our lives, what we know and see today or are aware of, will most likely be different tomorrow. We may not even see the objects fully until they are very close to us and even if we think we see them, what we see compared to what we truly see, may be two different concepts. Often our awareness brings with it familiar objects as thoughts, words, and music, among other things. It also brings with it little pieces that begin at first by being mysterious, and then growing to full recognition within ourselves. We are more than what we see, and what we see is a part of us, as we are a part of it. The possibilities are endless and the experiences many, but with each new moment of each new day, what we are aware of is much more than the day before. This is what makes us human; to become more aware of ourselves, what is around us, and how we impact all that we touch through our lives. Of course, this is my view behind the painting, but each person who views it will see it through their own awareness, and it will take on a life of its own which is ever changing.