The Seance was a painting I had been thinking about for a long while. My interest in this wasn’t for artistic purposes. I remember seeing the posters displayed at carnivals for mediums. They were either illustrated or photographed, and you weren’t sure if they were real or not. This was at a time before digital was around. As a kid, we are very impressionable and one would tend to wonder about these superstitions. When we become adults, we outgrow these things and dismiss them as fables and folklore.They are just immaterial and not tangible. Some may look at religion in the same way.
Recently, I had become curious about these things again. Modern life with it’s technology had become cold. Digital is now the excuse to the answer to everything.
I was considering going in a more Victorian direction using models or friends at first. As the idea developed further, and after speaking to a few people, it began to change. One person I knew remarked, “ No F#&*g Ouija boards.”(No argument from me.) It was apparent how uncomfortable this concept was. I am sure some people that I knew began to think I was becoming an Occultist. The other reason was that the drawings I had done previously seem to intuitively draw me in on their own. After a few false starts, and getting out of my own way, it slowly started to come together. I had to divide it up in three parts to keep all the details.
One influence was this old documentary from the BBC called, “Science and the Seance”. The history of the Seance and Spiritualism. You can watch here, broken into four parts.
The photography of the late 19th and the 20th century also continued to inspire me. The magical quality of these old photos really captured something. You can see them for yourself and decide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0HncGNBCqY
I had finished my painting after a long period of working in winter darkness. The process of creating this was both challenging and comforting, unlike some other projects I had done.
Whether you believe in it or not, a healthy amount of skepticism is fine to have. There are plenty of frauds claiming to be mediums. For the very few that are real, they are unassuming and go unnoticed. The world comes with many prejudices. These type of things were mysterious and interesting growing up when I was a boy. As an Adult, it is nice to know they still are.
Victor Ramirez
*THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ*© All written articles and visual images are the copyright and creation of Victor H. Ramirez-vichramirez2015, and not affiliated with rhometechdesign.com
THE ART OF VICTOR RAMIREZ 