Metaphysical Symbols

Statement by Daisaku Ikeda

Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside your self. Daisaku Ikeda President, Soka Gakkai International. sgi-usa.org

Metaphysical Symbols

The artworks on view at CurtisGraphics Art & Design Services are in themselves "Metaphysical Symbols". Form and color are combined, united and harmonized to create heart felt impressions of life. They are not meaningless abstractions. The concept of inner radiating light plays an integral role in the development of these images. This light emanates from within a counterpoint of darkness and shadow. In some of these images the light is radiating from without almost hiding the shadow. In others the light is radiating from within the darkness and is almost hidden. The light expresses all the positive forces of nature including growth and expansion, the power of intellect and most important, the power of transcendental love. The darkness elicits the dark forces of nature and of humankind: anger; resentment; hatred; complacency. Ironically, we cannot have one without the other. The darkness increases the beauty of the light just as evil contrasting benevolence enhances the joy one experiences by doing a good deed. It is an eternal paradox.

Experiment.45

Phoenix.45

Stained Glass is an environmental art form. As light floods the interior of a church or synagogue, the inner space is transformed into a mystical source of joy, peace and tranquility. The Stained Glass Designs at CG Stained Glass Design are expressions of a deeply felt inner searching for the eternal.

These works are characterized by a fusion of color, form and texture. My experience with stained glass design has familiarized me with the power of light and the difference between the three primary colors of light, RGB (red, green and blue); the three primaries used in printmaking, CMY (cyan, magenta and yellow); and the three primary pigment colors, RYB (red, yellow and blue), and how they break down into their cool and warm, saturated and unsaturated counterparts.

I believe the future of design will see more substance in terms of a mélange of classical as well as contemporary themes introduced by artists living in the present. We posses an extremely broad history of art that can be drawn upon with the introduction of both small and sometimes very large innovations.

Concept 1c

In summation, these works are about light. This is because of my background in stained glass design and working with colored light. Stained glass as an environmental art form transforms the interior of its setting.

Experiment 45 evokes an interior realm of existence deep within. There are conflicting elements within each of us. Refined to their most basic common denominator they are positive and negative forces which animate us and make us who we are.

All images are copyrighted © 2006 to Curtis R Doll Jr - CurtisGraphics Architectural Glass Art & Design Services - All Rights Reserved