Creating visual art, contrary to what many would assume, is not solely a visual act. To do it well, images and language assist each other in a symbiotic quest for meaning in the artist’s mind. In my view, neither images nor words alone are satisfying means of exploration.
Writing has been an important aspect of my work from the very beginning. For several years I wrote about issues and themes that concerned me and that played a role in my visual explorations. In 2013 I began to identify as a writer as much as a painter, delving into fiction as well as more academic pursuits. Over the next four years I wrote two short stories, a feature-length science fiction screenplay, and an autobiographical novel. All remain unpublished, with the exception of one short story, “The Fool,” of which only about twenty copies were self-published.
In 2018 I became more interested in the field of depth psychology and began academic study at the Pacifica Graduate Institute. Since that time I have written several papers that attempt to formulate an aesthetic theory synthesizing the thought of psychologists C.G. Jung and James Hillman, and philosophers Martin Heidegger and Alfred North Whitehead, among others. These too remain unpublished.
In March of 2023, my essay “A Crisis of Spirit: Archetypal Pedagogy and Cultural Revelation” appeared in a book edited by Clifford Mayes and Jacquelyn Rinaldi, entitled New Visions and New Voices. Here is a link to that book.
In 2024, two of my essays will be published in book collections: “The Purpose of Art” and “Specialization and the Self: The Promise and Peril of an Archetypal Education.” I will provide links to those books upon publication.
Below you will find a selection of mostly short pieces that have served as artistic statements over the years. The exception is the 2013 essay “The Artist in the Age of Contraction,” which marks the beginning of my academic interest in the psychology of Jung and the philosophy of Heidegger.
Bots in Love: A Consummation, 2020
Interview with Cesare Biasini Selvaggi, 2020