Dust and Shadows - Pulvis et Umbra

                        Pulvis et Umbra, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 cm

no substance to this solid globe on which we tramp . some rotting, like the earth  .  others, like the moon, stable in desolation . this vital putrescence of the dust . rots uncleanly into something we call life . a mere issue of worms . scurrying abroad with myriad feet . the anchored vermin . this mountain mass of the revolting and the inconceivable  .  all these prey upon each other  . lives tearing other lives in pieces, cramming then inside themselves . the vegetarian is only the eater of the dumb . our rotary island loaded with predatory life . drenched with blood, both animal and vegetable . turns alternate cheeks to the reverberations of a blazing world, ninety million miles away  .  there is no habitable city for the mind of man .

extracted from  R.L. Stevenson, PULVIS ET UMBRA., 1910, the full text available free here

Following through on my theme of the emotions of aging, this painting about Dissolution appeared under my brush. I wanted to express something of the horror of corporal Auflösung. From the moment we are each thrust into this universe, into our conscious existence, we must each struggle for Being, for Dasein, in a universe implacably ruled by the law of entropy. I wanted the image to contain a note of menace in the inexhorably approaching doom. I chose to put the figure on the margins, already undergoing vernichten at the edge of Being. Half the canvas i left as raw black gesso undercoat. It signifies the the ineffable darkness in which Shiva dances.