The Story Behind . The Journey of My Awakening Soul

Life model sketches on paper — A walk through

The body is the instrument of our hold on the world.
Simone de Beauvoir

Ever since I was little I was drawn to the human figure. Drawing figures in all kinds of styles was my favourite thing to do as a child. It didn't come as a surprise to me that in art school I developed a strong passion for figurative art, in particular for nude figure drawing — which, later on led me to become more conscious about the human body and the basic principle of sensualism.

We need both body and mind to heal the soul, and vice versa.

This particular way of body awareness also taught me how to read the body and its energy. Through studying several archetypes that we humans have been embodying for centuries, I learned that both female and male life models evoke the Greek goddess Hestia (or Vesta in Roman) in a positive way when they take on modeling poses in which they are completely absorbed. For a Hestia type is said to manifest itself when silence, meditation and patience is needed. So when the body needs to bring out an inward look, a natural grace and inertness, the archetypal energy of Hestia comes to surface. Also, one who knows how to convey this inner gaze in return in art, with the same patience, devotion and contemplation, activates at that specific moment that same mindful healing energy.

Art heals by accepting the pain, and doing something with it.
Shaun Mcniff

What followed next duringThe Journey of My Awakening Soul was the now obvious inner knowing to no longer perceive my body as only physical matter. More and more I'm learning to use my body as a receptor for higher frequencies to purge and transmute stored pain (trauma) and every other density layed upon us by society and our upbringing. I perceive my body as a physical vessel to travel into the deeper aspects of my core being to cleanse away what is blocking and limiting my system, and to bring it back into a state of Pure Consciousness. It is truly amazing how, through the emotions coming from our body, mind and soul, we can learn to re-connect with our Higher Self, the highest version of us that we were born to bring into the 3D physical world. The version of us that the world needs. When we heal our trauma and upgrade our consciousness, all of us, as a Whole, heal and re-calibrate the outdated collective mindsets we are all part of.

I feel safer when working with a female director because I know it’s from a female gaze.
Rowan Blanchard

To explain the approach behind my drawings I frequently use(d) the term female gazing — yet, I now prefer to use inner gazing, because it fits the Unity Consciousness that the collective so desperately needs.

Still, female gazing is very important in our times. Understandig where it originated from and what it means is key information to understand certain induced modes and distortions that have been running in our systems for ages.

Female gazing is a film term representing the gaze of the female observer. It allows females to be viewed as they really are and not as the voyeuristic spectacle that the male gaze made (and still makes) them out to be, which was pointed out in 1975 by film critic Laura Mulvey. By way of the male gaze, the man emerges as the dominant power within the film, in which the woman is shown as a passive erotic object for the pleasure of the male viewer. This inequal way of seeing, or being seen, has been defined as a hierarchical ideology embedded in the constructed belief systems of Western culture and patriarchal society. And as said, these distorted programs still run in our sytems, seeming to be 'natural' and 'normal' because they were dominant and unchallenged for a long time. They set masculinity in tough opposition to femininity, thus creating levels of inferiority. It demonstrates how women through HisStory have been forced to view not only film, but also art, politics, philosophy,... through the male gaze. It shows how women still have been denied their human identity, relegating them to the object status to be admired for physical appearance and male sexual desires, rather than to be appreciated for their insatiable creating, sensual and Divine Feminine power.

Conscious female gazing, along with practising energy cleansing, truly helps to heal and release outworn collective gender perceptions like these. Hence, it is something we should all do more, since we have free access to it. Also men, through recognizing that they too embody and accordingly carry the oppressed feminine energy. When both sexes learn to accept the vulnerablility these old patriarchal grids have caused, and acknowledge and cleanse away these gender related karmic wounds in order to stop re-experiencing old hurts, we re-establish our Wholeness and become loving inner gazers once more. Which is why I portray in my series of life model sketches the inner journey of both male and female figures from a still much needed female gazing point of view — to urgently restore the Divine Feminine in all of us.

Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that colour never can.
Jack Antonoff

Knowing that beyond our physical self, every human being on earth embodies both feminine and masculine energies (and archetypes) to varying degrees, I obviously prefer drawing with a distinct dark colour on a light background to symbolize how these energies not only remain next to each other but also complement each other. With a clearly defined sketch, I find I can allow myself to concentrate more on making the unconscious conscious, through externalizing what is experienced within my own body, mind and soul, through sketching a nude life model.

Additionaly, I would like to bring back and honour nudity as a symbol of innocence or purity of character. Allow me to refer to the story of Adam and Eve in Paradise from the very first bible book, Genesis. When Adam and Eve took a bite from the apple of the tree of Wisdom, or the tree of knowledge of good and evil/ligth and dark, they discovered they were actually nude, and for the first time they felt ashamed. This is why today, nakedness in general, is programmed to be very unacceptable — as a collective we still feel the shame of having made the choice of being independent from Source/God/Consciousness. Which happened from a cyclic and evolutionary perspective on this planet of polarity. Not to start hiding our shame, but to confess to the vulnerability that it has caused when we started to think for ourselves. 'Committing sin' (as the Fathers called it when rewriting the bible) was in fact what made Adam and Eve more aware of themselves, which signified the start of The Journey of Our Mental Thinking Development, our growth of conscience.
Are we today as humans in a state of innocence or purity in character? Ofcourse not. But it reminds us we once were. Rekindling our Divine Spark from within is exactly what we are meant to learn here on earth. To reach back to the highest and most purest form of consciousness. And nudity clearly represents this deep rooted metaphor.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.
Carl Gustav Jung

Also, white is Pure Light — which holds all colours, and black is the absence of that light. Without light, nothing can be seen. In other words, light becomes visible in the dark. Therefore, Wholeness can only be experienced when we also look at the things we don't want to see. Only when we embrace our hidden dark flaws, our (not gender related) Divine Feminine energy runs at full power. Clearly neither light or dark is 'positively' or 'negatively' charged, these terms were created from a 3D mindset of division. They are simply degrees of the same, and therefore inseparable from each other.

That being said, using an ink wash technique/lavis in my work to enhance details, also helps me to bring nuance to this ingenious collaboration of both light and dark. Furthermore, I feel that when figurative art is executed without colour, it offers the potential to invite the observers to go beyond what is created, hopefully affecting their own humanity on a deeper level. It might allow them to become naked too, and more aware and serious about the inner and repressed aspects of their own body, mind and soul. To me, a clearly distinguished figure study has the potential to simplify the mindful complexity of what lies beneath a certain gesture. It's about not just perceiving a drawing skill but to tune in and be present within yourself while observing. In fact, it's about not thinking black and white but about feeling with the colour of our heart. In not just being something, but all that we are or can be in that very moment, and embracing that — which the working titles of the sketches might enhance. By challenging ourselves to step out of the mind, sink back into the depths of our body and soul, and thus igniting the spark of Source, we can unfold and develop a more profound, loving, peaceful stability within ourselves — beckoning a spiritual awakening.