VISUAL ART

​​​​​​​ZAHAR (2021)

Zahar is a series of paintings (acrylic, superglue, sea salt, crushed butterfly wings),l each depicting a single drop from the inner spring. The term zahar has various meanings--notably, in Arabic it means "sparkle, bloom, shine;" in Old High German, "a tear." The cross-cultural etymology of this term speaks to the dynamic nature of this work. When I use tears in my art I am not thinking about sadness, but of soft expressions or distillations of intensities, a fluid means of communication made available, a luminous spiritual water. The circular color mandalas presented here are the droplets, as seen above, from a subsequent series of paintings ("Scintilla"), in which the tears of myself and the Mystery flow into one another, giving rise to emergent forms and communicative shimmer. The circles of Zahar are the colorplay of this inner spring, illuminated by the Scintilla and informed by dream figures and the language of the wondering stars