Many people from across the world appreciate, respect and understand my work, but recently quite a few contacted my gallery with a complaint that I painted ’’Enlightenment’’, a story about a Hindu swami.
Their irate comments are mostly coming from fundamentalist Christians who do not accept any themes apart from their own approved biblical characters.
Their concern is that I got deceived by the Devil who allegedly sent a Hindu swami across the whole world as counterfeit to Jesus’s model. Ironically, both models for Jesus and the monk paintings came through my very front door almost miraculously.
They are saddened, because they are convinced that I had lost my discernment between good and evil. Other groups of Christians accused me of the same in the past when I chose to paint even Jesus. A few even suggested that I should burn all my paintings and writings.
These people fail to comprehend that I am a journalist visionary artist who paints diverse cultures, faiths and realities from both the visible and non visible realms.
I am still learning and discovering new cultures, but I can assure you that the monk is no different from all of us who are seeking god and the truth.
In fact, he is one of the most humble, friendly, accepting and giving individuals I have ever met in my life, and during the four days he stayed with us, I found out that he was an answer to my prayer; for the past year I had been seeking to learn about different traditions and indigenous cultures from around the world.
I have been growing as an individual, and my understanding on life has significantly widened in ways I cannot describe, and only through my art can I fully reveal my new perspectives.
I am a citizen not only of this whole, but of the whole universe, and I will continue expressing all of its faces, personalities and emotions.
As someone said: ‘’Even the stopped clock can show the correct time twice a day’’, I choose to be outside the time and robotic limitations of this finite world’s alarm clock.