WEST MEETS EAST

Second Part

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Print Series

Hiding Chaos: This piece is playing with the idea/concept that the universe was born in the conflict between order and chaos; and all the questions that arise as a result. Is the visible structure actually chaos? Is a destructive black hole in truth creating order? Or is the everlasting question about chaos and order only a question of perspective? Sometime it's really hard to accept, that we're all living in a complex universe we do not even understand its size, much less its function or purpose …

Side Note: A circle is the universal symbol for oneness, unity, eternity, the absolute, the cycle of life and many more. As soon as the ring grows or shrinks, it won’t close as a circle any more but transforms into an elliptic shape instead – that’s the very moment, when oneness (a circle has one center point) ends and duality begins (an ellipse needs two center points to be defined).

Moon Bridge: A moon bridge is a highly-rounded arched bridge common in Chinese and Japanese gardens – The arch and its reflection on the water form a circle, symbolizing the moon. To me the two halves also represent consciousness and subconsciousness; inseparably linked together.

Side Note: Did you know, that Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered coincidentally in 1929 when Alexander Fleming noticed that mold that had contaminated a bacterial culture in a Petri dish had killed the bacteria all around it?

Cash: Cash is the name of traditional, Chinese coins, characterized by their round outer shape and a square center hole, symbolizing the unity of heaven and earth (Yin and Yang). Today, these kind of coins are commonly known as “good luck coins”.

Money in general stands for this material/transcendental relationship, as its material value of change isn’t bound to the actual value of the coin any longer. Our society agreed, that a stamped piece of metal and a specifically designed piece of paper are equivalent to a certain amount of value – every coin and note we use is actually a contract. Today we even went further and most of our money is just a virtual number, somewhere in a cloud or on a disk, saved in bits and bites, transferred by air and Bluetooth.

With this in mind I reinterpreted the shape of the traditional cash coin as a volatile cloud with an empty, square hole in it …

Shifting Balance: After a change (as little as it might be) we never get back to a previous status quo. Any influence is a shift in paradigms we have to adapt to. In this sense we’re always the sum of our experiences, like this brushstroke; fragmented, rearranged, trying to get back its balance.