He suddenly understood the message of so many spiritual teachers that the only revolution that can work is the inner transformation of every human being.
- Stanislav Grof
The work of the American artist Noah Schneiderman (b. 1996) encompasses diverse practices such as textile dying, object making and, as a prime, painting. In this exhibition Schneiderman expands on his process of utilizing dyes made from materials found in nature, which include mud, barks, roots, and flowers to imbue the canvas with natural color. This alchemical process merges the landscape with each individual substrate, which are then sewn together to create a pattern that keeps expanding outward, creating new connection points and paths of discovery. This gestalt acts as an automatic drawing and an underpainting for the artist to undermine or to follow. His paintings function as mirrors to his inner life and as objects of spiritual utility. To do so, the artist co-creates the artworks with the “other”, a spiritual twin (a whispering one), and he, himself, plays the role of the “listener”. It’s a guiding force in his practice. The artist relies on incidental mark-making that emerges through the dyeing process as a basis for intuiting forms and discovering novel imagery. These discoveries help to cultivate an understanding of the world and the interconnectedness of all things in it. This glimpse into the “other” is like looking behind a veil, revealing a universe of infinite possibility.
A development of his practice through which an alchemical process makes the forms bleeding in and out of focus. A way for Schneiderman to create a “roadmap” that serves as a guide for the painting process. These substrates are then sewn together, shedding their individuality to become a unity. The “many-becoming-one” emphasizes the importance of finding harmony within diversity.
The meditative center of the show is symbolically The Wheel, akin to the “cosmic mudra” in Zen meditation, a cosmology which all images emerge from. These paintings, though seemingly singular and disparate, are movements to a complete dance. A waltz of opposites that find unity in the disarray, making up a unified psychic experience. Visions of biological forms, deities, and spiritual interlopers make up the content of these images without giving way to any narrative or reading. The smaller canvases feel like fragments of this existence where the edges of perception become blurred, and images start to break apart, back into the source from which they came.
With The Cosmic Game, Noah Schneiderman explores the edge of soul, challenges our perception balanced by senses and feelings, and makes us cosmic travelers. (VVB)