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| Nude of the Spirit Introduction Throughout history, the nude, whether male or female, when expressed as a unity of imagination and perception, invariably exhibits a dignity which far removes it from social concepts of nakedness. With each age, the nude whether in painting or sculpture has undergone its own transformation becoming modified and redefined in the process. My personal development and redefinition of the nude focuses on the “perception” that our corporeality is an extension of a transcendent reality. This relationship between body, spirit and soul has been a theological preponderant for almost two thousand years. |
| Chromatic Sequence No. 18, Time Immemorial. 2009. Gold leaf (24 carat), natural and mineral pigments in casein distemper and oil on linen on panel. Diptych: 165 x 219 cm / 65 x 86.2 ins. |
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| The Real and the Imaginary C. G. Jung wrote in ‘Mysterium Coniunctionis’ (vol.14 of his collected writings): “The existence of a transcendental reality is indeed evident in itself, but is uncommonly difficult for our consciousness to construct intellectual models which would give a graphic description of the reality we have perceived”. My insight into this fundamental issue has changed over the years from my dynamic ephemeral figures of the 1980’s to my most recent polychromatic nudes which attest this basic precept that the archetypal world inside ourselves is just as real - or imaginary - as the physical world we inhabit. |
| The Drawing and Painting Nearly all my work starts with drawing from the life model, or occasionally ancient Greek sculptures. The work explores each model’s kinaesthetic awareness through spontaneous and undirected movement. Each drawing session thus becomes a minimalist theatre of the imagination. The paintings are developed from this material. My work is an exploration of the nude as the central and fundamental archetype of human existence. The archetype is not a thing in itself, but an experience of the spirit. The paintings focus on the integration of the figure and its dynamic energy field or aura. This sometimes takes on its own abstract form as in the diptychs of the ‘Chromatic Sequences’ - like standing in front of a mirror and seeing one's own immortality reflected from the mortal 'perspective'. This is a personal response to Paul Tillich’s 'the ultimate concern of being'. The use of gold-leaf since 2008 is in the traditional role of late European medieval and early Renaissance painting in which the alchemical purification of the human spirit is elevated or transmuted from base material into gold (either literally or metaphorically according to the individual’s perception of reality). The gold-leaf not only defines the picture plane, but also functions as an integral spiritual and visual component of the painting. The Pigments The natural and mineral pigments I use produce a very different palette of colour and luminosity compared to modern synthetic pigments whether as oil or tempera paint. The pigments include lapis lazuli, azurite, malachite, cinnabar, orpiment, realgar, vivianite, purpurite, red and green jaspers, stibnite, pyrolusite, cerussite, galena, calcite, quartz and Japanese oyster-shell white (Gofun). Other natural pigments include natural indigo, the root madders, cochineal red, and earth and ochre pigments. I have published three papers on mineral pigment preparation and application since 2000. |
| Copyright © Michael Price Inc. |
| Solo show at the Walter Wickiser Gallery, Chelsea, New York, September 2009. |