Metanoia II Painting

The title of my new series of paintings 'Metanoia' (a word derived from Greek meaning "changing one's mind") was used in Jungian psychology to describe the mental breakdown that must occur in patients so they can then be 'reborn in a more adaptive form', a mental process often intentionally brought on in shamanic traditions through pain rituals and hallucinogenic journeys into the subconscious. The work explores this alchemical process through digitally collaging, distorting and layering multiple photographic elements into semi-abstract compositions which are then refined and filtered through a final stage of painting in oils. As well as describing this state of transition between one form and the next through the combination of visual elements depicted within the paintings, this dynamic shift also occurs within the gap between figurative form and abstraction, a thread that runs throughout all of my past work.