Ayahuasca Series by Marshall Arisman at Zadok Gallery

 

Oct. 29, 2011  Ayahuasca Series by Marshall Arisman at Zadok Gallery

https://whatsupmiami.blogspot.com/2011/10/tonight-ayahuasca-series-by-arisman-at.html

Tonight, Ayahuasca Series by Marshall Arisman at Zadok Gallery

 

 

아하~ 이 분이 부인이신가보다. 국적은 모르겠으나 동양인이신 듯...ㅎㅎㅎ
내가 딱 한 번 다른 학생들과 함께 아리스만의 작업 스튜디오에 견학(?) 갔을 때,
내 이름을 물어서 'Eunice'라고 했더니 대뜸 '그거 니 본래 이름 아니지?' 그래서 
얼떨결에 '아니다'라고 한 게 기억난다. 아마 동양 유학생들이 영어 이름 쓰는 게 신기했던 모냥...
아리스만의 인터뷰에서 주욱 읽다보니 어쩐지 동양인이 아리스만을 더 잘 이해할 거 같단 생각도 이제야 좀 든다.
이토록 spiritual world에 관심이 있으신 줄 몰랐네용...
타임지나 유명 잡지 일러스트레이션만 봤을 때 몰랐던 아리스만의 정신세계, 작품세계가
인터뷰를 읽다보니 조금씩 이해가 되면서 괜히 관심이 가게 된다. 그림풍이 딱히 프란시스 베이컨과 똑같진 않으나
왠지 그 분 그림과 비슷한 느낌이 느껴지는 건 두 분 다 대상의 spirit을 표현했기 때문인지도 모르겠다.

Tonight, Zadok Gallery presented Marshall Arisman’s opening exhibition entitled “The Ayahuasca Series,” a group of paintings and large format drawings inspired by the psychoactive infusion ayahuasca.

The brew is known by a number of different names. It was academically described in the early 1950s by Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, who found it employed for divinatory and healing purposes by the native peoples of the Amazonian Colombia.

What’s Up Miami? briefly interviews Marshall Arisman about his latest exhibition at Zadok Gallery in Wynwood.

Tell us about what motivated you to create these rupestrian-like series?
In 1970, I went into the southwestern part of France in a region famous for prehistoric caves such as Lascaux in the department of Dordogne, and when I was in there I was struck by seeing that there were different people drawing on top of each others drawings, obviously there were different artists from different times’ periods.
I started reading and researching about these complex caves, about their artwork and the different theories attributed to them which nobody knows for sure what really happened in them. 

I ran into a theory which affirmed that what was happening in there was that the tribe would appoint the shaman or artist, only one person, nobody else worked on the wall which was like a curtain that the shaman went through from the material world to the spiritual. 
You could not do that without an animal helper, if you went alone you would never come back; so each shaman had an animal helper and would go into the spirit world come back, illustrate that on the wall, the members of the tribe would come in, put their hands on the drawings to get the energy through their eyes placed on the illustrations. That’s why they drew on top of each other, because more energy was accumulated with time with the drawings of many people.

Do you think the people went there to get healed or elevated spiritually?
They went to get the energy; the belief was that the energy was there. When you see the handprints, you realize that there were many generations of people leaving their handprints there. The grandfather’s print, the father’s, the child’s and they believed that the energy stayed on that wall. You could feel an entire generation by putting your hand in there.
Tell us about Ayahuasca, have you taken that psychoactive beverage from the Amazon?
I have never taken it. The famous American writer, William S. Burroughs went to the South American Amazon to look for ayahuasca. In his semi-autobiographical works, where he confessed about his experiences as a heroin addict, he said that he went down there and found a shaman who gave it to him but nothing happened as compared with the effects of heroin. He got sick for three weeks in bed and he was complaining to the shaman about the long journey he had made to get there for nothing. The shaman replied, “you were not ready for ayahuasca.”

So, do you think that in order to feel the effects of Ayahuasca it is necessary to have some level of spirituality developed?
Exactly. It’s not like LSD which you take for fun and see all sorts of things. I love the definition of a shaman who said that ayahuasca was to find lost objects and lost souls. Those cave drawings are charged with lost souls. So I found a connection from the Amazon to the French caves and this is the inspiration of these series with elements such as rainbows, animals as symbols for the material and spiritual worlds.
A friend of mine, American novelist, Paul Theroux, went down to the Amazon and found ayahuasca. He said the experience was very mixed, he saw animals, he got sick and he wandered back and forth, but overall, it was not a pure experience. It is so potent that you get sick. You would not want to take it if you are not prepared or ready for it, which means that you were doing it for the right reasons.

How different are these series from your previous works?
Well, it’s on the same line. Animals carry knowledge, and I was painting monkeys which carry knowledge from the East, as it is widely believed, the cat carries Middle Eastern knowledge and the white buffalo carries Native American knowledge. The mixture shows up in these series.
What type of material are you using as canvas?
It’s hand-made paper very light and strong. I found it in New York City and one day one of my graduate students from India said “that paper is made in my hometown which is made from tree leaves and branches.” Sometimes you find a surface that feels right and this one gives an organic feel to the series.
by Jesus Manuel Rojas Torres at 5:18 am