Jungle Stairs #1, Detail
2017 Acrylics on Canvas Format: 60x50 cm Paintings and Text: Gian Michael Merlevede Jungle Stairs #3
2017 Acrylics on Canvas Format: 60x50 cm Jungle Stairs #4, Detail
2018 Acrylics on Canvas Format: 60x50 cm Jungle Stairs #1
2017 Acrylics on Canvas Format: 60x50 cm Jungle Stairs #8, Detail
2018 Acrylics on Canvas Format: 60x50 cm |
Jungle Stairs
- The Wilderness of the Soul - About the Series With regard to the very first painting in this Jungle Stairs Series, I can't recollect anymore why I initially came to paint a flight of stairs in a jungle. Most likely, I ventured out on impulse. Simply enjoying the gestural flow of the successive brushstrokes. Eventually liking the graphic rhythm, the visual cadences that unfolded. I continued adding some more translucent color layers on top of that, and eventually I noticed how everything fitted together in a vibrant and beautiful manner. All in all, another episode of intuitive creation coming out of the blue! I guess, that's initially how the course was set for all subsequent variations I painted from there on. Only in retrospect, I began to muse and pounder about the actual meaning of this newborn visual metaphor: this enigmatic given of neat steps in the jungle (or even a ladder). Right from the start, so much I do know, I wanted to create a series on the jungle in all its ambiguous nature: its pleasant and its dangerous sides. Its ethereal harmony, its abyssal horror. Because at that time, I strongly identified myself with an imagined struggle for survival out in the wilderness. Sensing lots of similarities between a survival in the jungle and my own wanderings of the soul. Given that my life's experiences were both as agonizing as they were fascinating. As a matter of course, I set out to paint about this kind of wearisome, protracted wanderings through the soul's own wilderness. Wishing to emotionally express some ambiguous aspects of my own imaginative visualizations. [1*] So with this series of paintings, each time, we find ourselves in the jungle, far out in the wilderness, alone. On this journey, we may find ourselves at risk and severely challenged, if not downright stuck, as this quest comes with pathless terrain and lots of grueling stages. Valuable clues - like a flight of stairs or a ladder - are revealed to us only piecemeal. Finding the way out of the crisis, that's the point. But only "looking upward transforms us" (Ute Heuser-Ludwig). On that all too often painful journey (think of movies like "A Sea of Trees"), we are bound to keep hope. What is more, we need every bit of aggregated faith confidence drawn and based upon the strength of experiential knowledge that we have lived through. I'm talking about any accumulation of first-hand faith experiences with the invisible Person of God and his good Character. Because in the cold light of day, we need to know that now and then, divine handouts will be found on our pathway. In my view, those flight of stairs are like symbolizing precisely that. Sometimes, things going on in our lives, seem totally unsettling, even contradictory. We may loathe being in an in-between state, yet it might serve us to improve things, to create new space to live. As a limited person on earth, the seeming unavailability of the triune God-Who-Is-And-Speaks-Sovereignly can be difficult to accept. Likewise, some given holy order in life may feel totally frustrating. Principles in God's Creation with which I may have my dear trouble, because in reality I would rather not admit some things. Perfect conditions to get completely lost. Wrapped in half-truths that I still want to believe altogether. And then, there's the perplexing matter of psychic pain caused by emotional wounds that just won't heal. When it silently dawns on me how deeply and most painfully difficult it actually is to track down certain knowledge and to dig it up laboriously. In any case, escaping this kind of dark forest can be a rocky road. Even so, I also do find heartfelt refuge in such a remote place and psychological state - be it in reality or imagined. This particular viewing angle I love the most about this picture: seemingly escaping any unloving human world. And "wild nature" like protecting and securing me by its remoteness and seclusion, or by simply concealing me with its thick and dense foliage, its shades. As long as it may last, I then share in the sheltered, peaceful, even heavenly side of the jungle. Enwrapping myself like with a heavy, dark blanket. Feeling entirely protected and fully held. Being all by oneself in peace and quiet. For when it comes to this resting place, it is in the end all about me and my fathering Creator. And due to his excellent Character, I keep learning, always only step by step, year in and year out, to completely and ultimately hold trust in His limitless abilities. Furthermore, in His sublime tracks, as invisible Creator and God-in-Person, I too want to grow up and prove myself. In that respect, this kind of visual metaphor has its deeper layers, it's all about God's separate, yet all-encompassing Being. As this sort of quest alone in the dark forest symbolizes my ups and downs in finding out about the God of the Bible. "For just as the sky is higher than the earth, so my deeds are superior to your deeds and my plans superior to your plans." [2*] Ultimately, through this kind of visual metaphor, I'm also able to subjectively symbolize God's Person - to a certain extend that is - as if He were some kind of holistic, sacred "jungle". And I lie in it, go into myself, all the more surrounded by Him and His protective hand. After all, my soul belongs to Him - according to the Bible that is. [3*] I was entrusted with something invaluable, but only He can and will be my fulfilling source to that encompassing reality. Then again, the Creator reveals himself to me like a raw, terrible wilderness. This kind of reading disturbs me. The kind of test which I can only pass in failure. No chance avoiding it. Because God's own Person himself appears to be facing me, like a ruthless challenger. And suddenly I don't understand anything anymore. This reminds me of the story of Juliane Koepcke. On the night of Christmas Eve, in 1971, teenager Juliane Koepcke was on a flight to Lima (Peru), when the plane was struck by lightning and began to disintegrate in midair. She was catapulted out of the plane, still strapped to her seat, falling - "Surrounded by a complete silence," as she recalls - nearly two miles into the Peruvian rainforest. Harnessed by her plane seat - part of a row of three - during her descent, she survived the deep fall through the thick foliage with only a broken collarbone and a concussion. Unexplainable, she was the sole survivor. For eleven days, she crawled and walked the jungle. Hungry, wounded and desperately alone, ultimately surviving and finding her way out. She was only 17 years old. In the ZDF-interview she recollects: "I felt that I was alone. (...) In the following days, the loneliness was the worst for me. This absolute solitude and all the nights, those were most terrifying to me. I felt infinitely abandoned there, and when it rained it was even worse, it was so pitch dark and I was completely on my own. I was utterly desperate. And that sense of being detached from the rest of the world, of being totally alone, and perhaps even never to return to the world, to the human world, that I perceived very strongly. And it was extremely unpleasant." [4*] Real growth often comes along with a lot of pain. Growing spiritually is difficult. Now and then, quite unexpectedly, some divine "steps" merge into a "staircase" or some sort of "Jacob's ladder". It's through this kind of experiences and "passages", that I have come to realize, bit by bit, that the divine Creator comes around with a flawless Personality of exceedingly excellent Character. It's indeed exactly like the authors of the Bible do claim and state their case: when it comes to God's personality and divine goals, no moral darkness at all has a place in Him or comes with His "dark" ways. Extended experience in the course of many years keeps showing me: my faith-trust investments as a Christian have never proven to be in vain ...in the end. Even God's unavailability and His divinely decreed, creational order of life, have a way in teaching and comforting me, precisely so, because being a mere human, I am not able whatsoever, to petty, selfishly and immaturely manipulate Him or His decreed creation's order in any way. Against my better judgement, I'm held and cared for, for the better and the worst, even in the wilderness of my soul. - - - - - [1*] Like many creative people, writers and storytellers I have the gift of "productive" daydreaming/escapism. On the one hand I enjoy daydreaming as a natural coping mechanism - since, when mental escapism is done in moderation, there's nothing wrong with it (unlike "maladaptive daydreaming"). On the other hand I use daydreaming as a creative activity, which is also known as visualization. Mental picturing about a subject area, and visualizing oneself in a certain situation, often leads to new ideas and insights. It improves thinking! [2*] The Bible, Isaiah 55:9 [NET Bible copyright © 1996-2006]. [3*] "Behold (pay close attention), all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die." - Ezekiel 18:4 [Amplified Bible]. [4*] Freely translated and quoted by Gian M. Merlevede from "The girl who fell from the sky", a 4-minute ZDF-Interview in German on August 11th, 2013. Published online until August 11th, 2018 under this URL: https://www.zdf.de/gesellschaft/sonntags/das maedchen dass vom Himmel fiel 102.html See also her autobiography "When I Fell From The Sky", Translated by Ross Benjamin, Titletown Publishing, 2011. |
Copyright Artborne Erdeborn / Merlevede