The Start

At last, I had some space, time and some mental freedom to create something that came from the heart. I had found a place that had some or enough peace to concentrate and let some of the experiences out.

It began with 'Yellow submarine face', my mind and personality were fragmented, broken open. To be in the process of creating without a reason or idea.

I had begun my first meditative practices with serious diligence and persistence and was having experiences of complete bliss and then jumping back to the horror of what had happened over the last couple of years.

Pure abstraction suited me, and I would always keep the artwork moving, looking for something to hold onto and at the same time destroying the process by turning the painting around continuously. Keeping the working on edge as it went forward.

The same principles I applied to the 'Mirror on Obstacles" a title given in later years when it became clear what had happened and what it meant. When you are inside something, there is little or no perspective. Mirror of obstacles is the best of three that remain from that period, most were destroyed or lost over a two year period, and most of the art did not have much quality. These do not contain high quality, but they have the essence of truth, and that is more important to me.

The larger piece was my attempt at following in Francis Bacon's steps the only artist that came near I felt and thought to the violence I was experiencing within myself, the wounds he painted, the disorientation and the brutality of life touched what I touched inside every day at that time. My personality was pretty much wiped out, and I had isolated myself as I tend to do when licking these wounds and finding some form of ground to breath again.

At this time I had begun to do hours of deep contemplative meditation and had many insights, trying to control not the monkey mind but an overgrown gorilla mind, thankful of counting a few breaths as I walked down the street. I was gifted experiences through meditation that have stayed with me to this day. As I sat on the tube an overwhelming sense of love for my fellow people on the tube overwhelmed me, not imagined or forced but sincere and natural, I knew that there was no real separation between human beings.