ANEMONA CRIȘAN
Artist-Blog
>kNOW THYSELF THROUGH ART<
My deep interest in exploring and expressing the metaphysical world is at the heart of my works of art, through which I reveal the invisible multidimensional nature that exists beyond our physical body and the material world. My paintings and drawings for instance are abstract figurative portrayals of our etheric, elemental, and multidimensional shapes, rather than mimetic, realistic reproductions of the visible, physical reality. By portraying these non-physical dimensions through physical art, I am reintroducing and reintegrating this invisible reality into our material world.
This same approach lies at the core of my site specific works, be it in exhibition installations or as site specific art and architecture projects in office buildings, residential complexes or public spaces.
Here, I have the opportunity to open up the real, physical space to a new, previously unseen „parallel“ reality that becomes visible through my art work.
A multidimensional approach to space
The design and creation of my site-specific art involves a specific method of connecting to the site, which comes through a multidimensional investigation involving the physical, emotional mental and etheric realms:
First, I explore the mental and physical plane, the existing architecture, its functional elements. I study how people interact with and perceive the existing architecture.
Next I move to the emotional plane, how do people feel within the architecture? I also feel into the architecture itself, its soul, and take on the building’s own point of view: If I’m the building, the architecture, how would I feel? What am I missing? What do I seek?
The third phase involves connecting with the site, often known as the spirit of place or genius loci. How does the spirit of the land feel? I also like to involve the elemental realm, of water/earth/fire/air/ether, which can be viewed as a precursor to the material plane.
As the final step in the design process, I collect these impressions and allow them to combine to form an imaginary story in my mind, which then serves as the foundation for creating site specific art work, typically through hand-drawing and painting on walls, floors, ceilings, and windows.
The big RE-CONNECTION
Often, the emerging stories have a „Desire for Connection“ and „Co-Creation“ at their core. These desires mirror our current dysfunctional, disconnected era, in which the spirits and non-physical elements (of people, places, and buildings) are in desperate need of communication with one another yet are unable to do so. Consequently, I regard my art as the intermediary between all of these elements, allowing for a reconnection and collaborative creation of the visible and invisible realms.
Bringing back LIFE FORCE into architecture
The majority of contemporary architecture is created digitally. It often gives off the impression of being generic, soulless, devoid of vitality, and progressively estranged from the human being, the genius loci, and any other nature spirits and elements that exist in the non-physical realm. This disconnected architecture is depleting and esthetically numbing its inhabitants.
Through my artistic approach I enable the re-connection and integration of the multidimensional aspects of site, people and architecture, which allows life force to flow through architecture and create a spatial experience that is greater than the sum of its parts. Through this process, architecture is reconnected to its essence, becoming re-charging, harmonizing to its residents.
HARMONY in art and architecture
The notion of "harmony" has been completely disregarded in contemporary art. We are continually told that art should "criticize," "disrupt the comfort zone," "wake you up," "be political," and so on. While this is interesting to some extent, it cannot be an end in itself.
I believe we have delved so deeply into these issues that art (particularly established museum/gallery art) has lost its integrative factor, the power to produce "beauty" and connect with the "soul" of the people. Contemporary established art has deteriorated into a patronizing, moralistic tool that diminishes the human being while promoting division and a depressed worldview.
Today, like many other aspects of our lives, established art has lost its vitality, character, and purpose.
I don't want my art to be part of this tendency; instead, I want to contribute to a harmony and reconnection between people, space and architecture, as well as between our physical world and the metaphysical world. We need to reintroduce the concepts of harmony, beauty, soul-essence, and life-force not only into the art world of museums, and galleries, but also into people's daily lives.
The intelligence of the hand
We greatly underestimate the role and quality of manual work these days. As an artist, I have frequently witnessed the immense intelligence of my hands and body when producing a piece of art. For me, it is impossible—and, to be honest, boring—to only envision an artwork and carry it out without involving the subconscious, intuitive intelligence of my hands, the tools and materials I use, and the intelligence of the site, which emerges when I work on an artwork in situ. Manual creation reconnects architecture to its soul and life force. A process, that cannot be replaced by a purly digital creation.
HIGHEST INTENTION
The responsibility to know from which energy we create
"Working ethics" is a concept I rarely hear when it comes to artistic intention and production. Working ethics should also apply to our intentions and the dimensions we connect to when creating a work of art! Excellence and purity of action are essential, which means being aware of oneself, one's emotional issues, triggers, and shadows in order to avoid attracting energies that are depleting.
The "highest intention" serves as the foundation for my artwork. It is always done for the "highest good of ALL involved," rather than from a purely egoistic, career-driven perspective.
BioGeometry and the energy of shape and space
Following my artistic studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, I've spent the last few years exploring fields such as
BioGeometry®, the science of the energetics of shapes and spaces, and incorporating
BioGeometry design principles, measures, and energetic measurement tools into my site-specific work methodology to further refine my artistic intuitive approach.
BioGeometry aids in measuring the life force energy of colors, shapes, places, and sites, as well as adjusting designs to allow the maximum amount of harmonizing life force to flow through.
CALLING THE visionaries!
If you are intrigued by my unique approach to site specific art and you are a visionary who would like to collaborate with me and incorporate site specific art into your private or corporate architecture, garden or landscapeor any other visionary project, I invite you to get in touch with me here:
office@anemonacrisan.com.
The Journey FROM being THE CREATED TO being THE CREATOR
by Anemona Crisan, 07/05/2023
We live in a time in which our self-image, and with it our worldview, must be completely reshaped if we are to continue to evolve as a species. Old traumas, programming, limiting beliefs (around guilt and shame) must be seen and transcended. This is an individual, inner process. An experience that everyone can only have for themselves and for no one else. A necessary metaphysical evolutionary step of humanity, which frees us from the current, purely materialistic-rational worldview, and leads us into a new paradigm, by becoming creators instead of being created by rules from the outside.
It seems to me essential for this process to recognize our previous human self-image as a victim: powerless and exposed, we must hide or suppress our authentic being in order to survive. In extreme cases, we adapt to these external systems to such an extent that we become an obedient defender of the negative programming. In the past we have witnessed how people, who think differently, are persecuted and killed. This worldview is now coming to an end and the question is: Do we step out of our role of the victim into the role of the creator?
These questions cannot be answered with the already known system of programming and limiting beliefs that have put us in this position in the first place.
We must enter new, unknown terrain. And this terrain is ourselves. We are the terra incognita.
Entering and navigating this unknown terrain is the core and meaning of my art and of art in general. This is where I see the role and responsibility of the arts today: to demostrate, inspire and remind us of our creative power that lies (dormant) in each and every one of us as an individual talent, and to help us step out of the victim role into the creator role.
How can we as humans now navigate this process?
I have pondered these questions in my artworks:
Anemona Crisan, SchOEPFER (Victim/CREATOR), pencil and acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60cm, 2011, as an artistic poster with text, 2022.
In this painting, you can see a head that is also reminiscent of a heart: A heart-head. Constructed of red lines (blood vessels), this heart-head is a symbol of our Self-awareness, which only becomes possible through linking the processes of thinking AND feeling.
This self-exploration process is a journey of re-membering, of re-connecting to ourselves, of going inwards. It has to take place both mentally and physically. The head, as a symbol of rational knowledge, concepts, mental structure and the heart as the seat of our intuition, body wisdom, our emotions – only when both work TOGETHER and are connected can self-knowledge, wisdom, be experienced.
That's why this heart-head is transparent, nothing is hidden, we look directly inside, into the authentic structure of being.
This remembering is also a journey into our own inner darkness, in which we can ultimately discover, expose and create more of ourselves.
It is this recollection, this journey into our darkness, which is our infinite potential, where we discover our talents and bring them to light.
Entering our own darkness (potential) scares us and we often only take this step when we are forced by (tragic) circumstances.
I was forced to take this step in my artistic work back in 2014, when I was in a massive creative crisis: the old way of doing artworks no longer worked for me, and a new way was not yet perceivable. I was terrified: Will I come up with anything new at all? Will the collectors who have valued and bought my works take this step with me? Am I going to lose them all? This was a crucial turning point in my life and in my art.
I decided to take a radical step and turned everything upside down: from realistic to abstract, from black on white, to white on black. This step required a completely opposite way of thinking, from putting a shape into a white space (black on white), to pulling a shape out of the infinite darkness (white on black). In this process, I turned my focus from the outside-world to the inside-world. From the surface to the essence.
This step alone opened me up to my own darkness and potential and helped me to approach the unknown within, the inner secret, the inner mystery. I've learned to relax in the unknown and be comfortable with it.
I realized that we can learn to play with the darkness (the potential) and in this way consciously create things theough our awareness and conscious choice aka free will. However, what we get out from the darkenss will always mirror what we perceive ourselves to be: if we are self-judging we will pull out the confirmation for this, if we are self-loving we will pull out a completely diefferent story.
ENTERING THE UNKNOWN
Anemona Crisan, Vortex,
Ink on canvas, 100 x 180cm, 2014
A portal from the light, the visible, the known into the darkness, the invisible, the unknown. An inversion of the known reality.
This work stands at the beginning of this departure into the unknown and represents the portal to this dark phase, from the light, outer world, to the dark inner world.
Entering the darkness means going into the void, into the unknown, into a space with no boundaries, where we have absolutely no orientation anymore, we don't know where it begins or it ends, where up or down is. We have to learn to realign ourselves to this new space, as the old habits and laws no longer apply here.
The trigger of this dark phase is often a tragic situation that FORCES you to deal with the darkness. (If you have already experienced this darkness before, you'll recognize this phase and to step into it much more consciously with more self-awareness and self-empowerment).
Biologically and culturally, we are used to being afraid of the dark and seeing it as a threat. If we have the courage to enter it (self-empowerment) then we experience that it actually contains the entire potential of the negative AND the positive. It depends on our orientation what we can/want to get (draw) out of this potential, because we can only produce what we already are, or better: what we expect (consciously or unconsciously).
(There is also a Youtube video for this work with the title:
"VORTEX" art of light and shadow
where I talk in depth about these concepts related to this work.
WHAT DO WE FIND IN THIS VOID?
The discovery and realization I have made through my works is that this darkness is an abundance AND an emptiness. It's a void and full of potential at the same time.
In the works that followed, I therefore looked for myself in this "filled" void. This resulted in works that are reminiscent of head/mask-shaped structures and that appear like a mirror image out of the darkness. Anthropomorphic strauctures that can have micro- and macro-cosmic dimensions. They form a shape and then fall back into streams of light, move from wave into particles, from pure potential into matter, and back again: a constant emergence process / self-creation process of forming - de-forming - re-forming.
Anyone can mirror and thus reflect themselves in these head-shaped structures. This process is an initiation to oneself, our own inner mystery.
Anemona Crisan,
DisConnected, diptych, ink on canvas,
each 40 x 34 x 3.5 cm, 2016
This void is also a gap between the parts within us, like the inner split between the left and right (brain hemisphere) - the bridge between the two is unknown territory, a mystery to be discovered.
Darkness as a catalyst of light
In this work, which also depicts an abstract head made up of two structures facing each other. W are only able to see the radiant light because it is obscured by the darkness (as in an eclipse).
Anemona Crisan, Corona, ink on canvas, 38 x 35 cm, 2016.
(the title refers to the solar corona).
What happens when we've penetrated the darkness?
After entering and exploring the darkness, we begin to consciously shape the light within ourselves.
We are creators of and created by this light, this fire and responsible for how creative or destructive it is.
I have addressed this idea in the "Lucifera" and "Light Bringer" series:
Anemona Crisan, Lucifera, ink on canvas, 100 x 80 cm, 2018
Watch also the Youtube video on this work with the title:
"LUCIFERA"
After becoming aware of our creator nature,
we rise UP like a PHOENIX from our own ashes
The phoenix motif also runs through many of my art works. The PHOENIX it is the bird that burns itself down completely and rises up, reborn from its own ashes. A powerful symbol of self-knowledge and self-empowerment.
The phoenix transforms the old by burning it and building something new from the ashes. The fire here is not pure destruction, but a creative force that disolves the old shape back into potential (ash) and transforms it into a new shape, being, cycle, that can now arise anew.
Anemona crisan, phoenix, Tbush on canvas, 120 x 250 cm, 2018
YouTube video about the motif of the PHOENIX:
"PHOENIX":