About the Work
These images have roots in the soil of particular ideas and thoughts I have been drawn to in Jungian psychology, mysticism, philosophy, physics and channelled texts (notably the works of Jane Roberts and Guy Needler). These areas were the gardens where I discovered the seeds and many were found on the wilder margins. The works have references to crop circles, to the ideas of Walter Russell, to electrons, to Mayan Baktuns, to Mewar miniatures, to dreams, to energy and patterns; all given free play and becoming visual encapsulations and representations of my ponderings on the dynamics and structure of consciousness and the self.
I have always wondered at the seeming darkness that extends beyond the structure that I know of as ‘self’. Is it more about my limited ability to perceive than any intrinsic invisibility? The tight weavings of this structure; the very woven fabric of the self, we identify as mind and the mind creates worlds. The patterns of thinking that repeat and turn in convoluted habituations have tendrils that leave and seem to move away ‘beyond’ but tendrils of thought also cross thresholds towards us, from that "beyond". We contain it within us, there is no limit however rigorously we hold to the campfire of what we believe is 'real' and where we think all we are is centred. We feel the psychic traffic of an ineffable energetic system of which we are an aspect. “The true story of consciousness has not been written.” The geometries of a vast living reality shape us and through venturing beyond the occupied lands where in taut compression we limit our state of being, there is so much more to be found.
The Tao is like a well.
Used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void.
Filled with infinite possibilities
It is hidden but always present.
I don’t know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God.
Pencil on paper 2019 - 29.7cm x 42cm
Biography
Jean Cullinane is a visual artist living and working in Tipperary, Ireland. After completing her MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art she lived many years in London, working in an academic library. During that period she also spent a year in Catalonia. After returning to Ireland she had a solo show and went on to do an MA in Interactive Design at the University of Limerick. For the last four years she has focused intensely on her art work. After creating fabric copies of pages from the Beatus Facundus, a medieval spanish manuscript, she explored early Buddhist art, Russian Icons and Indian miniature art from Mewar. Influenced by sacred art, esotericism and symbology Jean did a series of acrylic paintings. She sees the images as a way of working out ideas she encounters, of giving form too and combining different concepts as she integrates them in an intuitive play of colour, shape and pattern.
In 2019 Jean began a series of 9x9 indigo inks on watercolour paper, of which 73 are complete. Ideas of frequency, vibration, wave, particle, geometry, pattern and time were the ground from which they emerged. Her extensive reading on the subject of consciousness and perception contributes to the process of trying to represent movement, magnetics, light and the subatomic. On a more down to earth level though an early indigo ink drawing was the result of a surprise nocturnal visit of a bat into her room, through a barely open window. While waiting an hour or more for the little creature to find it's way out she contemplated how it made sense of its predicament and how it perceived its environment, a situation we all find ourselves in. The paintings and drawings are detailed, intense and symbolically rich.
Contact
Some of the works are available as Giclee prints with more planned. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments.
email: jeancullinane@gmail.com (personal)
Untitled - Acrylic on board - 50cmx45cm