:: 2019 :: 180cm x 60cm :: Acrylics, Inks and Markers on Canvas ::
One of the formative experiences in developing my art was sitting in ceremony with the Mexican entheogenic herb salvia divinorum every Friday evening – come rain, shine, and at one point, Christmas! – for nearly five years from 2004 to 2009. This resulted in, among many other things, the :: salviaspace :: project, which liberated a huge number of sketches, illustrations, digital images, music and even short films which all sought to resonate with the strange, beautiful visionary landscapes engendered by this teacher plant.
At the end of this period I came to a natural close with the herb, and decided to celebrate this beautiful ending by creating a grand sketch of salvia-space as a kind of visionary love-letter to everything I had learned and experienced, from the emotional and spiritual essences of what the plant had shown me, to specific episodes in memorable visionary experiences. I marked it out on a big 6ft-wide canvas and then somehow never quite got around to working on it. Years passed!
In the meantime, a digital version of the sketch itself featured in a book about salvia divinorum by Ross Heaven in 2013, entitled Shamanic Quest for the Spirit of Salvia, in which he wrote:
“This image reminds me of the visions experienced by my wife, in Peru and then in Spain, of a ‘reality annihilation machine’ of sorts: a multileveled conveyor belt holding various landscapes and slices of reality, worked by an overseer (in her case, a ‘blue god’ of some kind): ‘like rolls of living wallpaper’. Bruce’s art conjures the same feeling, but in reverse: of realities unwinding and coming into being, a process again overseen by an entity of some sort. The similarities are striking from two people who have never met, shared experiences, or were even known to each other. The key difference – whether we see our realities as beginning or ending may say more about our own patterns and processes than it does about the nature of ‘reality’ (whatever that means) or the spirit of Salvia.”
This wasn't necessarily my own interpretation of the image - the figure at the left is closer to a representation of myself in altered consciousness state, beholding my visions - but I appreciated Ross's novel perspective. In Summer 2018 I finally returned to the image, feeling that now was the time to close this particular salvic circle..
Salvic Voyager is a picaresque exploration of salviaspace, from the twisting spaces to the appearances of beings, from inner landscapes to surreal dreams, before giving way to that strange, conscious salvic void which is simultaneously (and paradoxically) empty yet shimmering with presence and awareness, redolent with both meaning and meaninglessness. This artwork traces the changes in my perception and identity that salvia divinorum bestowed upon me, and the visions which still live within me.
Click here to visit the archive of the :: salviaspace :: project
Click here to visit the archive of the :: salviaspace :: project
