The Futile Search For The Formula Of Beauty

The Futile Search For The Formula Of Beauty

There the glorious statue stood, backlit by the morning sun shining through the massive museum window. From the onlooking man's position, standing in the cast shadow of the enormous figure, the circumference of the muscular stone was emanating an eternal glow.

   Hand to mouth, the discerning man stood, picking at the parts of the monument trying to figure out the formula of beauty. No answer was reachable from this direction, eventually he was distracted by a moving visitor and the operation was terminated. The termination was of an absolute quality with a timeless presence like a black hole that made surrendering to it an inevitable proceeding.

   How much time do we spend picking apart flowers petal by petal, snapping open the stems to see what is inside? The answer cannot be found no matter how closely we look. What is the nature of this limitation? The whole cannot be broken down into parts, however the parts can be used to contruct the harmonious whole. Remove one ingredient, be it time-based, spatial or material and the beauty dissapears in a flash of negation. There are dynamic interactions which take place on a natural level inaccessible to thoughtful comprehension. Perhaps the limitation is exactly that: cognition. Can the human access a different well of information? Is there a Knowing different from the knowing of experiential validation? After all, all experience is coloured and filtered by past experiences and this cyclical operation moves incessantly and automatically— the stopping of which can only occur when it is recognized at its core of functionality.

   The car door slams as the busy man rushes on to the next priority in his frenzied day of chasing pleasures in a mistaken belief that he will justify his leisure time. He catches himself as the judge and immediately switches to an air of outward slowness while the mind continues to run idly. The bird, unmoved by the circumstances, calmly watches the scene from the rooftop gutter. The slamming of the door is not held in memory but the details of the scene are broken down into distinguishable frames of perception adding colour and motion to its existence in flux. There is no judging, no stopping with a thought, just direct observation and timeless joy. The silent woman watches the bird from below and sees the whole of experience in the beginningless and endless exchange of energetic forms.

See the abstract wood sculptures inspired by these subjects of inquiry:
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