About the painting - takeway value
The rough color of this painting Into the Wild has a power to draw us in. Sort of cold country setting.
The image radiates a calmness, yet some deep dynamic is reaching and pushing through the skin of this landscape. Friendly, soft and white. Then again, authoritatively. Something with soul and sovereign clarity, blazing forward.
I know these testing grounds are here to stay.
Biographical background
Back in 2004, I suffered a severe, religious burn out. My soul left „church“ almost broke. I had the feeling that God was just too invisible and too silent to bear. Even so, I could never question His existence, let alone His presence in the universe. Therefore, I felt utterly trapped.
My projected ideas about God were faltering. Clearly, He was not going to be manipulated by them, ever. He became as real as nature in all it´s lovelyness and brutality. Shockingly I woke up to His dangerous side. I landed in cold country, groping around.
At some point I stepped into the void, deciding to keep moving. Too far gone to fear my sense of religious damnation. This act of defiance helped me regain a sense of self. For years I had been crying out in vain for some heavenly response. Caught in the webcobbs of mere human installed religion. Then at last, I stopped trying, and quietness set in.
„Lovely, isn´t it! This intimacy between us now?“ That hit the nail right on. Oh paradox! Though holding my silence, I had in fact been unable to shut Him out. Just too familiar and at ease in His presence. Astonished I noticed too, that the Father apparently wasn´t even offended by my harsh acting-out. He even dropped that sentence in my mind with a slight undertone of guarded respect, imagine!
These testing grounds are here to stay. Anchoring me with divine substances of yearning trust all the more. God is in charge with excellent timing. My surrender comes less frantic now.
This painting clearly has affinity with the central theme of the Wrestling in the Sea with the One! Series that I was working on in the same period of time. →Wrestling in the Sea Series
Back in 2004, I suffered a severe, religious burn out. My soul left „church“ almost broke. I had the feeling that God was just too invisible and too silent to bear. Even so, I could never question His existence, let alone His presence in the universe. Therefore, I felt utterly trapped.
My projected ideas about God were faltering. Clearly, He was not going to be manipulated by them, ever. He became as real as nature in all it´s lovelyness and brutality. Shockingly I woke up to His dangerous side. I landed in cold country, groping around.
At some point I stepped into the void, deciding to keep moving. Too far gone to fear my sense of religious damnation. This act of defiance helped me regain a sense of self. For years I had been crying out in vain for some heavenly response. Caught in the webcobbs of mere human installed religion. Then at last, I stopped trying, and quietness set in.
„Lovely, isn´t it! This intimacy between us now?“ That hit the nail right on. Oh paradox! Though holding my silence, I had in fact been unable to shut Him out. Just too familiar and at ease in His presence. Astonished I noticed too, that the Father apparently wasn´t even offended by my harsh acting-out. He even dropped that sentence in my mind with a slight undertone of guarded respect, imagine!
These testing grounds are here to stay. Anchoring me with divine substances of yearning trust all the more. God is in charge with excellent timing. My surrender comes less frantic now.
This painting clearly has affinity with the central theme of the Wrestling in the Sea with the One! Series that I was working on in the same period of time. →Wrestling in the Sea Series
Copyright Merlevede / Artborne Erdeborn