An Insight Into Pangea

Welcome, Studio Viewers! Allow me to present Pangea:

As if in a dream, I imagined myself on Pangea. I was in awe of the vastness knowing no human ever set foot there.  Suddenly I saw another soul across the immense continent. I was not alone, they were within reach. It was as if time had stood still. We locked eyes, caught in the moment, never imagining the turmoil beneath the surface that would eventually break apart the earth under our feet. 

It is sometimes the cataclysmic events in our lives that shake us out of our slumber and, often painfully and dramatically form new borders and unimagined views of a foreign landscape. 

If you think about it, with the exception of the rarely occurring and violent natural events like volcanoes and earthquakes, we are seldomly reminded that the earth below our feet is in constant flux. 

This recent work is called Pangea, after the once vast supercontinent that spanned one third of the Earth’s surface, and then 200 million years ago, began slowly and cataclysmically breaking apart to eventually form the world we know today. 

The most striking features of our natural world, including the tallest mountains and deepest chasms, were formed by the sometimes violent yet mostly slow moving and unseen forces continuously reshaping the surface of our planet. 

Our human topography is much the same in that our most striking characteristics may have been formed by cataclysmic life events that shaped our worlds. But also our internal landscape is developed by the slow moving yet constant forces of the day-to-day that generally go unnoticed.  We may not ever notice all the events, small and large that have come to define our human-ness. But Pangea for me was a good reminder. We only have to look within.

The canvas is like a map divided in four directions: North, South, East & West. There is a juxtaposition of fiery reds, scorched earth tones and watery hues. Each section carries remnants set adrift, created through a process of pouring water mixed with earth pigments. There are the natural organic outlines that mimic the earth’s edges and span the planes, but also the clear linear borders bisecting the view in both directions. 

The power that fuels the earth’s evolution on a large scale can be seen in the microcosm of our own lives which exist only in a brief timeline. The natural world is a powerful metaphor for life and a reminder that the only constant is change. Pangea inspired me to be fully present for the everyday moments and the really hard ones too. I hope it inspires you also to live artfully.