"Two Souls"
"I Am"
"Carlton, R.I.P. 2000"
© 2000 Roberta Stoddart
S
E A M L E S S S P A C E S
a dialogue between the concepts of Advaita Vedanta and Roberta Stoddart
by
Cathal Healy-Singh and Roberta Stoddart
Roberta Stoddart is
a visual narrator whose current collection of work SEAMLESS SPACES weaves the
psychological heartspace of herself with the public head space of society. In
producing these works, Stoddart inverts the perceptional status quo and with
simplicity, narrates the inextricability of all that is personal and all that
is political.
Her subjects consist of vulnerable, discarded, homeless individuals referred
to as vagabonds, normally avoided and viewed with a mixture of fear, disgust
or even hate by society. Her subjects transcend this gaze however, and reveal
themselves as 'passionate indispensable parts of a spiritual whole.' The subject,
the artist, the viewer and the society are in masterful fashion, silently woven
together in the empty, heavily textured, seamless space that surrounds the subject.
historically, societies suppress truths. we deny the raw
material of life and are inclined to ignore what is, fearful and ashamed of
racial, personal, financial and religious realities. our inner poverty promotes
perceptions of emotional and physical scarcity and results in a devastating
fight for space.
the mad, the vagrant and the destitute reflect suppressed truths and represent
our collective failure to value each and every human being. after we have silenced
such people with denial and institutionalisation we practice pity and tolerance.
we feel threatened by the vagabond because he speaks our truths, he is unpredictable,
he will not be silenced... those who struggle to live honestly may feel like
vagabonds themselves.
we institute the death penalty as an example of our cutting off and killing
that which we believe is not of us. we need to be sensitive to our actions and
reactions which ultimately define spaces within community.
The empty textured space surrounding Stoddart’s subjects and the miniature
studies of the content of this space are of keen interest to me. Their application
in this exhibition of works form distinct parallels with the development of
the Advaita Vedanta-a rich, non-dualistic philosophical tradition, expounded
principally by Samkara in India (788 - 820 CE). Central to this philosophy is
the concept of Brahman, which appeared first around 1200 BCE.
Brahman is the name for the experience of the timeless plenitude of being. It
is experienced when all subject/object distinctions are obliterated.. The Real
is Brahman and Reality is that which cannot be subrated - disvalued, denied
or contradicted by another experience.
The parallel between Stoddart’s work and Advaita Vedanta is that their
realities are non-dualistic. When one realizes that the particular (the subject
of Stoddart’s visual narratives) has its being in and through its relations
with other particulars (the viewers) and processes (the acts of photographing
and painting) and with Nature and Existence as a whole (the community at large),
that the subject is a dependent being, then the initial absolute separateness
and uniqueness of the subject are replaced by a more universal and connective
realization by the viewer. This realization forms in the textured canvas space
around the subject and in the public space between vagabond and passerby.
the physical process of painting is both immediate and direct, combining diverse
elements and processes with that which is seen and felt. in the work WHEELER,
a mix of oil colours and medium is washed into white linen to diffuse the psychological
space from which the developing image emerges. in the execution process, layer
after layer of thick paint is laid on with hog bristle brushes alternating with
soft sable. with maximum focus photograph and painting/ subject and self, are
scrutinised at fixed angles to create a sense of that which is not fixed within
and without the picture.
All relational experiences are founded on the distinction between ‘self’
and ‘non-self’, where non-self is taken to be God or another person
to whom one offers oneself in loving relation. These experiences fulfill the
emotional, intellectual and spiritual demands placed upon them and are valued
according to the fulfillment that they yield. These relational experiences can
however, be subrated by Reality, because Reality transcends the dualistic distinctions
on which the relational experiences are founded. This subration is encountered
at Stoddart’s ‘crossroads of the singular and the connected.'
generation after generation we struggle with the smaller
most profound microcosms of self, of family, and apply our distorted experiences
and perceptions to the larger community, world and universe. denial, the search
for approval and fear of authority hugely affect our ability to make healthy
decisions and to live freely as exposed beings. the line between normalcy and
vagrancy is a thin one because of the inherent falsehood in this community's
concept of normalcy. the self, (or the Essence), so shaped, begins by denying
its own worth. most humans wait to be loved... we suspend reality and slip into
a fantasy world while we wait. this rupture with reality is the source of spiritual
vagrancy.
Advaita Vedanta proposes that it is impossible for the body to be the receptacle
of the mind and that the mind does not dwell in the body. Rather, that the body
dwells in the mind. One attains this truth the moment one understands that one
is a reflection of all, and that the mind is a mirror of all else previously
conceived in the reservoir of consciousness that permeates all space. Hence,
Thou Art That, as it were.
a belief in change allows us to live in the present when
change is not perceived as an obstacle. the paradox of the vagrant is that while
he appears to live with few restrictions - in constant flux - he is often as
afraid of change as we are and has as strong an attachment to material objects,
however worthless they may seem. I AM's 1 bag has come to symbolise a marker
of his value. perhaps he does not understand that the object's value is a projection
from within himself, from within us. value comes from the reservoir of consciousness.
we can learn from I AM's bag how we confer value. when this truth punctures
the thin membrane that appears to separate the physical world from the world
of consciousness then all is one and there is no longer a separation.
Advaita Vedanta substitutes the notion of divine intervention with that of continuous
divinity in all time and replaces the tried concept of an act of faith in scriptures
by an act of spiritual experience.
to see the vagrant as not unlike ourselves, as a part
of the whole, we need to look deep inside and to listen with our full attention.
the earth stretches and groans and thrashes with change. the Beetham labasse
2, a violent space, is a continuity of the outside world. what we perceive to
be worthless and shameful is systematically rejected, defiled, thrown away and
buried... in some form or another, we are all present in the Beetham labasse.
Satkaryavada is a concept introduced in Advaita Vedanta where the effect pre-exists
in the cause. In this concept, there is no question or problem of creation as
an isolated event, except within the rational empirical mind. Such a mind requires
blind faith to accept creation which by definition, prevents the mind from going
beyond, to the level of seeing or experiencing the answers, into the state of
Brahman where there is no distinction between creator and created.
the labasse is our reject pile, and until we accept that
part of ourselves which we have rejected, how can we understand the vagrant
in us?
We have emanated and we continue to emanate; there is a progressive unfolding
and increasing of minds and egos out of our primordial Spirit. This expansion
informs all the subtle and gross thoughts conceived throughout the world. This
is recognized in Stoddart’s imaginative 'yearning to undergo a process
of continuous metamorphosis.'
Consequently, rather than conceiving of God as having made creation, creation
is the continuous and seamless expansion of God or the becoming of God. There
can be no why? or purpose to creation because God has no needs to be fulfilled
by creation.
life is meant to be challenging. it is the work and its
process and the continuous trying and doing that matter. what i see and feel
determines my conviction to act on my ideas and by force of will struggle against
and with mySelf to share in truth. the meeting point between self and subject
is realised in the critical moment of complete recognition, as the painting
becomes the subject i experience myself as i am.
Our waking consciousness is time bound. When in it we do not see things all
at once, nor do we think of things in a comprehensive totality, we are constrained
by sequential representation, to considering things one at a time-this ordering
of thought is disappeared in the SEAMLESS SPACES.
The world cannot be explained in itself, for the mind that would explain or
understand it, is part of, and conditioned by, that which it seeks to explain
or understand. In Stoddart’s work, no narrative icons are necessary to
explain her subject, since it is already connected to the viewer through seamless
space. Roberta Stoddart’s works instill in the viewer the recognition of
the 'nothing' that one is and at the same time, the 'everything' that being
alone can mean.
in some measure we are all vagabonds... many of us experience
our condition as painful, confusing and restricting. yet our pure spirit is
somehow immeasurably unbounded for there is nothing that we are not... we can
release pain and embrace differences and losses as gifts, to be of service to
others while servile to none.
The Seamless Space stills the perception of the viewer such that the relation
between material cause and effect is experienced as one of non-difference. All
relational considerations are superimposed in this Space. At that instant -
All Time is Now - or Brahman - affirming One Reality. This Space superimposes
the viewer and the viewed, and all actions which have led to the moment of viewing,
caused by effects and effected by causes.
i simply wish to paint about my life and other people’s,
combined, if you will. more often than not i paint those who really fascinate
me, marginalised people, courageous people. when i try to lay bare the essence
of a person, the process is an apparent contradiction, because in painting to
reveal, i actually apply layers of paint. i seek to describe and make manifest
in paint that which we all are, this one constant we are born with and with
which we leave...
The Law of Karma is based on one’s quality of action or dharma, which invariably
determines one’s future existence, including one’s day-to-day life
in the present physical form as well as in transmigration. Karma is expounded
as a convenient fiction, a theory that is indemonstrable but useful in interpreting
human experience and indeed human survival, as it is challenged by more fashionable
belief systems: those based on guilt, sin, fatality, exclusivity, wrathful Gods
and their attendant secular governments.
all is completely still as repetitive and effortful application
induces a transcendent state. time disappears... we are limited only by the
nature of our minds.
Roberta Stoddart’s works compel the viewer to interrelate with others.
One must conduct one’s relations knowing that the other is not different
from oneself. Love is the meeting of the other in the depth of being which is
grounded in knowledge and compassion. When the meeting is such, love expresses
itself in every action performed. You and I are not different. Everything has
its common being in spirit. The affirmation of sameness yields greater than
the affirmation of difference. Such is the affirmation of this body of work.
We wish to thank Kamla Best for her
help in editing the text of SEAMLESS SPACES.
- R. Stoddart and C. Healy Singh
Copyright 2000 Roberta Stoddart and Cathal Healy-Singh
"seamless spaces" was displayed in the Main Gallery at CCA7 from November 9th to December 9th, 2000.