us humans are all full of them, tiny monsters rattling around behind eyelids

(roaring their horrible roars, gnashing their terrible teeth)

they echo grim loops, their people sink further in, trying to swim, that bottom-of-the-well feeling//

monsters grow long like shadows and gobble all of it up whole/

maybe these things we experience- whether it be a paralysis or a depression, a worry or a swiftly narrowing perspective, anxiety, jealousy... perhaps they don’t have to be so blindingly controlling,

perhaps the stranglehold these monsters have over their humans can wiggle loose// unpinning claws and unhooking teeth. take a step backward and look at them all in turn//

this one’s jaw opens wide, that one howls in the night, this one takes tiny little footsteps soft and deliberate, that one has a long looping tail or many pairs of tired eyes or arms that hang melancholy and heavy,

don’t shut them out, don’t walk away, don’t muffle them beneath your palm or cover your ears, the roaring is tiny now

these creatures great and small are a menagerie of your own making

Scoop one up!

(mind the spikes)

and meet it eye to eye, don’t squeeze your eyes or scream them all away

realize these ferocious critters are yours// they deserve to be treated with

love/ patience/ a gentle heart/ soft palms

say hello to one another, one at a time

put them on your shoulders and in your hat

walk slowly through the warmth of the afternoon//

(together)

Conditions of Doubt coloring books

My work investigates this Eden that is happening Now, the constant humming of life without beginning or end. The mess that is all around us, the chaos, the noise. In forgetting to experience the present, we are distancing ourselves from this perfect and beautiful balance with the buzzing cycles of nature. Our Eden is cyclical, it bows and tides, it transforms, it is never stagnant.

 

From contemplating and investigating ideas of Eden have led me to a more focused look at the senses, and our perception of the world as mediated by our bodies. My work tries to articulate this dance between our environment and ourselves, a celebration of experience of the Eden happening now and always. My paintings are joy in seeing, in moving, in creating, in being. They swallow me whole, into the world and out of myself. They are my experience of the beauty to my left, to my right, above me and below me.

 

These paintings in particular are echoes of the American wild. They are an attempt at conveying the atmosphere and depth of these remaining sanct places, the small feelings as well as the immense. They remember the shapes that sunlight makes at different times of day, filtering through the rocks or boughs, bouncing, making unexpected rainbows from the beiges, ochres and reds. The vibrant swirls of a distant memory walked through like a dream, the tumblings and wanderings. In creating these paintings, I again get to curiously wander through the vastness of mountains, canyons, bayous and deserts.

Tides

these paintings are slow, objectiveless walking

steady steps / thoughtful encounters of toes with the ground

(feel the dirt, pebbles, muck) 

paced breaths that do not stop if you forget,

need not worry (in, out, in)

the breathing breathes for you, a subtle sigh/ 

the passing of clouds as a human lives,

does the sky count the amount of times

that their eyes blink? 

the sun winds slow circles looping around, around,

leaving stains in retinas

we spin even when the walking stops /

Wandering

This body of work is a collection of remembered experiences. These memories are tied to specific places in the world, specific meanderings my feet have taken through these places, the patterns my eyeballs drew all over them while I was there. Like most important memories, however, they aren’t entirely visual. Sometimes when we have climbed up to a particularly ominous ledge, or the sky is closing the day with colors that don’t make sense, or the city lights emerge through the pink of dusk like tiny candles, the strange newness plants us so firmly in the present moment. We are left with our breathing, and our searching eyes. But even as we stand there with our feet and our lungs and our fingers that feel the air- we can close our eyes and the precise details of space become jumbled. It is a difficult task for the mind’s eye to recreate every small detail- instead we are left with the feeling the place gave to us, the blurred haze  of the colors we saw, the sounds, the smells. Perhaps those parts are more important than simple visual facts.

That is what is happening here, with these paintings. They are landscapes (real and imagined), tied to places that pulled every piece of my being into (that) moment, not just what it looked like, but how it felt.

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Caro Nilsson

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