The Mind, Body, and Unrest of SPIRIT

The last painting, SPIRIT, was something I had thought about in one form or another. The stresses of daily life were difficult enough for me to think more about my mental health. It was through this that I became interested in meditation, and started to look at the human body differently.
Slowly, my interest in this subject would escalate over time. First, with my painting THIRD EYE, and then learning about the other Chakras of the energy body. I had originally thought about doing a series of paintings about the Chakras, but it never happened. I would come across many books as inspiration, including an old documentary narrated by Leonard Nimoy called The Human Aura: Documentary on Mysterious phenomenon.

The Human aura was something I was interested in. But just maybe, this idea was too esoteric for people to appreciate. The light body was an abstract concept, giving me some freedom for artistic experimentation. When the last painting for the SPIRIT series came, this felt like it was the right path to explore. I wasn’t really interested in doing a painting about Death, well, the skull and bones version of it. It was during this time that someone in my family about would have health issues. What began as a painting became a personal struggle.

There were many moments where I would start and then stop, wiping off the surface of what I had painted from the canvas and starting over again. This continued repetitively for a couple of weeks. There was a part of me that began to think that I would not finish, or of stopping this completely. But I continued to proceed forward, to keep working as it was the only thing keeping me together. Eventually, the health issues would subside, and the recovery process would begin for them.

I eventually returned to finish my painting, determined to keep going, with renewed purpose and appreciation of life.

Victor Ramirez

MEMORY Remains

Memory is a painting about how one’s mind remembers a past event, which started as a different idea for something else.

At the time, I was struggling with subjects to draw and feeling numb to how I was the seeing the human figure. There was a desire to work but lack of clarity in what I wanted. I decided to take a step back from painting and focused on other things. During this period, I was getting into some gardening, as I wanted to bring some plants into the apartment. I was watching many television programs from the HGTV channel for inspiration around my home. One particular show was a program called” Monty Don’s Italian Gardens.” It was about Italian Renaissance Gardening in the 1500’s, and how classical ideas of Beauty and order were being used in landscaping.

What intrigued me about this was the use of gardening as an art form to make a statement rather than mindless leisure. There was great attention paid to structure and symmetrical space relationships. I would soon also become interested in Topiary, another form in Italian gardening. Topiary is a practice that involves the clipping of trees, shrubs and foliage into shapes and forms. They were often embedded in these garden landscapes. My original inspiration was to work on a design for a personal garden.

Sadly, I found this to be more complicated than I originally thought and decided to shift my intentions away from it. I had troubles focusing and couldn’t really understand why. After a few false missteps, I began to become concerned that I had forgotten everything I learned about painting, and then that is when I had a morbid thought, what would be my last thought, if I was losing my memory?

The aspect of memory, how we remember, was something I had started to question. What we experience and how we see things becomes our memory of it. Something we remember can be more powerful than what actually occurred. The lingering of memory stayed, prompting me to begin drawing and painting again.

I was obsessed with the idea of the distortion of memory, and the last thought. My interest in Italian Renaissance gardening had brought my consciousness back to painting without me realizing it.

For that, I am grateful.

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

THIRD EYE Mind

When Third eye began, I had previously been doodling a face with an eye on its forehead for a couple of months. Most of these sketches were done on small yellow sticky pads of paper in a blue ballpoint pen.It was something that I never seriously gave any thought about, but was very instinctive. Many of these random thumbnails I ended up throwing away. After coming back from a vacation trip, I began to think about this again and started to research more about it.

“In certain dharmic spiritual traditions such as Hinduism, the third eye refers to the ajna, or brow, chakra.[2] In Theosophy it is related to the pineal gland.The third eye refers to the gate that leads to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness. In New Age spirituality, the third eye often symbolizes a state of enlightenment or the evocation of mental images having deeply personal spiritual or psychological significance. The third eye is often associated with religious visions, clairvoyance, the ability to observe chakras and auras,[4] precognition, and out-of-body experiences.”–Wikipedia

This was fascinating enough that I didn’t need to embellish anything.
It was one of those subjects for a painting that would be too crazy not to do it creatively. What I really wanted to do was capture a moment and pose that didn’t feel like a science diagram. The psychedelic aspect also gave me a chance to explore color. I picked out a sketch from my scrapbook and began to work on it.

As I went further along, I began to discover more about its connection to meditation and sleep. Various cultures have referenced the 6th Chakra, Ajna, in their history, but all had the same meaning. I played with this very loosely in design with my own reinterpretation.

There were many sources of information and inspiration I had on the subject. One in particular, was a book called the Source Field Investigations by David Wilcock, which came from on his You Tube film, the 2012 Enigma, which I had seen in 2010.

It had a more scientific approach to it.

The sixth chakra has many stories attached to it . The training involved in raising ones consciousness, can be dangerous to those who are not prepared to do so. Due to the metaphysical nature of this myth, it cannot be verified and confirmed.
For me, this painting will always be something special and memorable.  Something, I will never forget.

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