PIGALLE Print

TRANSPERSONAL ART AND ME. Numerous philosophies and traditions agree that there are three bodies co-existing: the physical, the subtle, and the causal. Generally, the first two are perceived. The physical body sees and experiences, while the subtle body makes connections between thoughts and emotions. The causal body is the spirit, and its perception depends on each individual's level of consciousness. There are artists who have dedicated themselves to various spiritual experiences and left their legacy in poetic representations, symbolic images, psychedelic images, or metaphysical messages. This places them within what is known as transpersonal art. According to philosopher Ken Wilber, this type of art is one that transforms both the person and the viewer. It expresses something that both the artist and the viewer are going to become even if they have not yet "achieved" it. Wilber uses theoretical concepts from expressionism and impressionism to explain how the perception of the internal and external works and the process of de-identification of the subjective, understanding how the passage from one state of consciousness to another is manifested artistically. Impressionism is based on external perception (a landscape), and expressionism on internal perception (an emotion). However, the first is given more value of reality, as the second is supposed to be "subjective." In contrast, for the transpersonal, both states of matter are possible to represent. In all cases of transpersonal art, the artist seeks to capture a spiritual reality. In transpersonal expressionism, the subjective and objective state (that is, impression and expression) are "very close" due to the degree of subtlety in perception that the artist has achieved in their daily work of expanding consciousness. That which is subjective in one state or phase becomes objective in the next. Their subjective world has now become objective for them. Having transcended the previous perception and de-identified from the previous world, a higher worldview can be seen, which embraces and contains previous information but adds new perceptions and a broader understanding of reality. Following Wilber's line of thinking, not many artists could touch the sensitive fibers of the causal body. There is no way - as Wilber points out in numerous writings - to represent transpersonal signs, mystical experiences, without having lived them before. The artist must train not only their eye but also their soul.