What we see changes us.
October 16, 2008
Ben Frank Moss
- by Ben Fank Moss, image courtesy of Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle WA
Through the amazing fiery fall foliage, we drove last weekend to attend a solo show for Ben Frank Moss at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. It was appropriately called “Immanence and Revelation”, in reference to inner reflection as his source. We viewed about 70 paintings and drawings.
As Bruce Herman, painter, reflects,
…there is always a place for meditation on the beauty and significance of the natural world. In Moss’s work, paint is a palpable metaphor for space, for light, for substance.
Ben’s work illuminates for me, the way that inner light and memory informs the way we see. I also believe that what we see can transform us, if we allow it. So take a inquiring, meditative look at his work, here, at Francine Seders Gallery and at the Hood Museum in Hanover, New Hampshire!
In his essay in the catalogue, Joshua Chuang wrote:
For Moss, art-making is an endeavor that requires the courage to hold still enough to reflect on life’s vicissitudes and the willingness to work on the edge of failure. Because of this, whether endowed with the deep lush tones of charcoal the luminous hues and sensuous texture of oil paint, his art caries the layered history of a palimpset and the distilled intensity of personal revelation. His most succesful pieces exhibit the startling immediacy of a “held dream… a poetic gateway to an inner experience.”
I am interested in your response to both his work and to his philosophy of creating that bridges between the visible world and the invisible world within!
by Ben Frank Moss, image courtesy of Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA
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October 18, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Thank you for sharing. I love Ben’s colors. As I was already presented with his work by you and through you, it is so affirming how I can rest in beauty even through this media. I leave you with the following which I believe is the consequence of Ben’s work, your work and many others who practice Arts:
Integrating music and art into contemplative practice,
or making them practices in themselves, is another way of
allowing spirituality to become more holistic – to affect
the whole person, each one of us in our expanded integrity.
Art and music have special qualities that permit us to soar
to heights far beyond the range of intellect intuitive and
supra-rational experience. In time, and with guidance,
they can become precious means of accessing
mystical dimensions previously little
known or experienced.
From “The Mystic Heart,”
by Wayne Teasdale
New World Library, 2001
- Hugs, ng