'UNIVERSE'
Alja Zwierenberg
??? Veelzijdig Kunstenaar, Schouwer van universele levensprocessen
'If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales'
- Albert Einstein -
Fairy tales, metaphorical stories and parables are stories that arise from lived experiences and represent universal life processes.
They reflect on the surface what is present and lived in the depth. And can be understood at the level of existence which someone is able to recognize and comprehend at that moment. Through progressive insights in life tellings, these stories can have a broadening effect and be understood at deeper levels.
For me they are stories that bear life itself in it and they remind me of the many dimensions?life has and how love functions in it.
They can contribute and make a blueprint visible, provide insights, offer guidance and clearly indicate the ways in which life can develop.
What leads to growth, awareness and thrive in life and what brings uprooting, deformation and dying. And how in apparent duality a unity can be found and experienced.
In order to understand the soul of love in its essence, it has proven necessary in my life to get to know the working and intense narratives of hatred, to understand the underlying suffering and to gain insight into the essential need that is represented by it.
I would like to share what inspired me to paint, more than sixteen years ago, this painting, entitled 'Universe'. Because although it is 'a beautiful painting and lovely to hang in the nursery' (as I was once informed) there is a deep search for truth hidden in it under the surface. A narration that is still relevant to be told.
It was born of a poem, a note and an earth-shaking event.
Poem:
I am your child
on an earth that barely functions.
You have filled my hands
with colors, with brushes.
I don't know how to paint you.
Do I have to paint the earth
heaven, my heart,
the burning cities, the fleeing people,
my eyes full of tears.
Where should I run,
to whom should I fly.
The one who gives life yonder
The one who sends death
Maybe he will
let my painting be illuminated
Marc Chagall
Note:
Herman van Veen (a Dutch artist) said to me, after a moment of attentive silence when he took in the painting below: 'That figure could walk through the worst circumstances without being substantially affected by it'.
Event:
Beslan, September 2004
Hundreds of children and adults die violent deaths after being held hostage for days at their school. Among the hostage-takers were women called black widows.
From the consecutively reports of this event I understood that some of these black widows were pregnant women.
It confused me and I couldn't understand how a pregnant woman, carrier of new life, could kill herself, her unborn child and so many other children.
It kept me busy until, during a documentary, I heard a sister of one of the black widows tell how her sister got this far.
She shared how her sister's husband had to watch how his wife, who he loved dearly, was several times raped by soldiers. And how she was subsequently forced to watch how her husband, who she loved dearly, was tortured and murdered.
She was pregnant by one of the perpetrators
I had no questions anymore ...
I could imagine the hatred and the enormous aversion these women must have felt towards their own bodies and what grew in them. How obscure, murky, dark, black and cold life must have become for them. And how all love had disappeared into oblivion.
How little life still has to offer to you after such a traumatic experience and that it can lead to such a devastating act.
ánd how also new trauma is created with it.
I sincerely wondered how you, as a human being, can break through this experienced cycle of intense hatred and destruction, so that respectful behavior towards each other can arise? And searched for an answer.
The Visual Symbolism of the painting:
'UNIVERSE'
Religions play an important role in almost all, if not all, wars.
The symbol for Christianity is, among other things, a fish and a cross.
The symbol for Islam includes a crescent moon with a star in it.
The symbol for Judaism includes a six-pointed Star of David and a menorah (a seven-armed candlestick).
The symbol for Taoism is the yin-yang symbol.
In this painting I depicted shapes of these symbols in various places.
In a crescent moon with a fish in the place of the star (top left center and bottom right), I express the hope that the followers of both Islam and Christianity will be able to life together, beside and with each other.
A three-armed candlestick (bottom right) or a candle represent Judaism, from which Christianity and Islam originated. And for my love for the work of Marc Chagall.
And Eastern wisdom is represented in a sphere containing the yin of the yin yang symbol. The female part.
The left side
Bottom left side:
At first I wanted to paint these women, the black widows, in an inky black pool of mud. In order to display the intensely deep emotions. Black contains all colors, due to the lack of light in it you cannot perceive them.
Three forms emerged while searching:
One self-contained creature in the middle of the pool. With one eye and a pendulum in the light at belly height that represents the unborn fetus.
One creature with a closed eye who was fused with the pool.
And a bird shape with an eye and a tear, who tries to get loose while fluttering.
In the end, I chose deep purple instead of black. And the black pool became a pinkish, unformed substance. As painfully restrained emotions can be; clouded, until they take shape (crying, laughing, anger, etc.)
Essentially the women weren't bad. They were shaped by the circumstances. Maybe some could have made the transformation from hate to love. It seems like an almost impossible task.
?Pink is the color that symbolizes the love for one's self, ones selflove.
Left center:
The candles and orbs represent all perished souls.
They are accompanied by birds that symbolize freedom and communication in the broadest sense of the word.
Top left:
The souls are awaited by?Knighty-I. He symbolizes Archangel Micha?l who will guide the souls to the light.
His sword will protect them during this journey.
Beside him is Father Time portrayed.
Time is always ticking. No matter how great the grief and pain of loss is, time is ticking. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes he even stand still. Everything has its time and needs time ... also healing wounds.
The bottom
Bottom center:
At the bottom, in the center of the painting, I painted, highly stylized in a circle, the tower of a church that becomes the dome of a mosque, a gothic arch and a minaret.
In order to reflect the strong connection between Christianity and Islam.
One emerged from the other.
The circle is connected with the red of the earth, the water, the sea and life. And the fish represent the joy of living and being alive, on which every religion is based in its origin.
The right side
Bottom right:
I noticed a father so devastated about the death of his child. To honor him and all fathers, I painted a figure in the green circle at the bottom right with his deceased child in his arms. His heart is swept away, a hole is left.
A little higher up, the child's soul flies into another world.
The green represents the father's love for the child.
The circle represents the depth of his grief and his tremendous loneliness.
He is alone with his child and with all his emotions and feelings.
Still connected with the water of the sea, with life.
Center right:
An almost completely white tree is depicted in the center at the right.
The tree is nourished through its roots by the emotions of the world below and transforms it through its trunk into a new world.
The tree, bright and clearly present, stands on itself in the surreal world of the night, where everything seems to be different.
Its leaves herald a new spring.
?
Top right:
Vive la vie. Celebrate life.
A quest, a desire for freedom. The Eiffel Tower, a cow, sunflowers, angels and brushes.
Ans and Alja floating above it.
An unborn Angel, bounded by a sphere. Not yet ready to be born.
A snake with the same colors as that of the bird that represents the soul of the deceased child. They belong to the same world.
The world of transformation from one form to another.
?
In the middle
The King is a pure creature. He overviews life without wanting something. His presence transforms people and events. He has access to and exists in many worlds.
His strength bears love in it. Love that is not always recognized as such. The King is.
Slakkei is a loyal companion of the King. Everything is there in her house to ensure that they lack nothing. She loves being homely and cozy.
Here she is female, sometimes she is male. It’s just what’s handy to be.
She indicates that the King is in no hurry, and has all the time of the world.
The world around Slakkei and the King represents the more subtle world. A world that not everyone can perceive, which does not automatically mean that it does not exist.
Is it a moon or a sun, a spot or an angel? An elephant, a butterfly, a girl, a boy? Who lives in this world? Our deceased or unborn loved ones?
Top center:
The light, God, Allah, Buddha or maybe something we can't get our mind around.
Who we really are, who I really am?
All in all, for me this includes what the universe has to offer to all of us and so much more, hence the title 'Universe'.
?
To speak with Winnie the Pooh:
???'Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved'
My work tells itself as a journey through wise life lessons, searching for ways to shape and share what lives inside of me in illustrations, paintings, texts, stories and findings.
My heartfelt thanks for being a travel and companion for this moment,
With love,
Alja Zwierenberg
If you would like to read more, you are wholeheartedly invited
The human ego and our natural aggression: www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/who-i-whats-e-telling-me-alja-zwierenberg/
Truly? Vulnerability as an answer ... to what exactly ...? www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/truly-vulnerability-answer-what-excactly-alja-zwierenberg/
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