Featured Artist Michael Lightsey

Michael Lightsey presents a fascinating collection of ambiguous images created as an interplay of light and dark. Enjoy more of his work by visiting his website.

 

 

I’ve been making art for more than thirty years.

 

 

Whether it’s with traditional or digital mediums, I’m fascinated by the ebb and flow of shapes, the space between figuration and abstraction, and the interplay of light and dark.

 

 

This particular series of abstracted figures are intentionally ambiguous. Are they fighting each other? Making love? Are they asleep or awake? Flesh or spirit? The answer is different for each viewer. The pieces are a screen onto which one projects their own experience.

 

 

Light cannot exist without dark, nor peace without conflict. They’re interdependent. These dualities exist when the mind splits the unified field into subject-object and perceives itself as separate.

 

 

This duality causes suffering and conflict when the mind believes it to be real. Any attempt to eliminate the opposition only creates further conflict. Conflict and suffering exist to show the self that it’s misperceiving its true nature. They both disappear when the self lets go of its belief in separation.

 

 

Separation is an illusion. The unified field’s frequency is love, and it permeates all joy and sorrow.

 

 

Creating art is my way to express individuality within this unified field. I enjoy the psychological shift in making art, which allows me to perceive reality from a holistic perspective. I call it a pre-linguistic state of consciousness. In other words, it’s the headspace all of us have access to if we don’t let our left brain dominate our right brain.

 

 

Art making is one way to free oneself from the trappings of rational perception. It’s like being a dance partner with nature, surrendering to the now. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Artists have been doing this ever since the dawn of shamanic cave paintings and ceremonial tribal dances. It’s intrinsic to being human.

 

 

Whether we like it or not, we’re all entangled in a cosmic web, and it involves an energy exchange on every level, from mother’s womb to tomb.

 

 

Anyone who’s studied quantum physics knows there’s a subtle field of information, enfolded and unfolded, informing and interacting with everything we do, from the micro to the macro. Anyone in love knows this sensation and can feel it in the quickening of their heart.

 

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