Journal of Student Research 2019

Journal of Student Research

Gnosis: In knowing Gnosis: In knowing

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Ka Moua Senior, Studio Art: Painting; Minor: Philosophy

Mentor: Darren Tesar

Sickness is natural order, akin to death and birth. One experiences death many times before one can accept change. Once upon a time, death came calling in the form of an illness (disease) that consumed someone whom I had cherished, and also hated. In order to rid myself of those painful memories, I chose to create art that would help me understand how I could connect to the spiritual. Fragility exists in each living and non-living being, because one is born sick. How can one be sick and healthy? I seek to understand how the living and non-living thrive as undesirables, while simultaneously coalescing into one. If you are aware of a state which you call “is” – or reality, or life – this implies another state called “isn’t” – or illusion, or unreality, or nothingness, or death. There it is. You can’t know one without the other. And so, as to make life poignant, it’s always going to come to an end. That is exactly, don’t you see? what makes it lively. Liveliness is change, is motion. British-American Philosopher Alan Watts My art practice draws from reservoirs of mental and visual worlds. Thus, I tend to pose impractical questions that further lead to more questions than answers. I research philosophical, scientific, psychological theories and phenomena that act as a guide for me to do my own empirical studies that are presented in the form of art. I approach artmaking in a scientific manner which allows me to communicate my findings as both: artist and researcher. I also research various religions. It is mainly because Christianity is a part of me that I cannot get rid of, as it has infected me. Every notion about one’s belief is religiously connected to a non-corporeal realm. The belief of a higher being and or the existence of many deities comes from our unknowingness to the invisible realm. Art is the vessel to communicate the unknown: the invisible. Both realms of the real world and spiritual are of the same universe. It is one’s perspective that changes. Everything—living and non-living—is one being; they are shattered pieces of a stranger something we do not see and can only speculate that exists. The other side of the real world emanates voices. The voices are innocent, without sickness; they seek to take part in the sickness. But a consequent is not without approval.

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