I’ve lengthy appreciated the spiritualism and occult within the work and drawings of illustrator/artist Jonathon Rosen. He lately despatched me considered one of his sources, The Kabbalistic Tree / האילן הקבלי by J. H. Chajes, a e-book about Kabbalah, the traditional Jewish custom of mystical interpretation of the Bible utilizing esoteric strategies comparable to advanced diagrams. “The drawings operate as an interface to a different dimension,” Rosen says.
I admit to a eager fascination with Kabbalah … however zero literacy or fluency. Rosen informed me he incorporates Kabbalistic ciphers and configurations into the work that he does now. His artwork at all times has a pressure of esoterica working by it, so on this chat I’ve challenged him to unlock some secrets and techniques mendacity beneath the floor of his graphic veneer and try and make me (us) perceive.
Give me a crash course into the symbolic illustration in your work.
My latest portray Asherah, the Queen of Heaven on Life Help (above) relies on the divine consort of God that the biblical prophets railed in opposition to. Asherah was a Canaanite fertility/mom goddess related to sacred bushes. This Asherah does photosynthesis. She makes copies of DNA. As an emblem for mom nature, she’s completely wired and on life help.
The Kabbalah tree of life motif, or ilanot (Hebrew for bushes), was the ultimate component I had been looking for that might aesthetically and symbolically tie the entire composition collectively. I had been laying bits and items of black and pink paper over the portray as a form of atomic construction, or as one thing like acupuncture factors, which over time regularly and unconsciously started to coalesce into the ilanot form itself. Incorporating these diagrams was in complete synchronicity with the topic. Ilanot have tons of of variations however I selected perhaps essentially the most acquainted kind and added my very own variations to that. My foremost supply for reference was from the nice on-line Ilanot Portal by J. H. (Yossi) Chajes, writer of the lately printed magisterial quantity The Kabbalistic Tree.
Do you may have any relationship with this symbolism, or are you merely appropriating it for the shape?
By no means am I an adept at utilizing or decoding these symbols, nonetheless I do have an enormous attraction to manage panels, interfaces and triggers and I see the Kabbalistic diagrams as representing an interface to a different dimension, a better airplane of existence, in addition to functioning as an infographic of the divine. The truth that these diagrams had been an invention by medieval believers as a map of God simply provides to the enchantment, as I’m interested in the ability and magic of artwork made by and for believers, even when I could not essentially share the identical beliefs.
I’d wish to think about this work in all probability resonates for me by some genomic reminiscence—and using the Kabbalistic diagrams together with the exploration of the essential feminine divinity side in Hebrew religion as a method to discover, root round in, reevaluate and reenter my roots.
You’ve integrated Egyptian and biblical references (amongst others). How and why are these elements used?
I began engaged on these photos through the worst a part of the pandemic. They’re a type of meditation on mortality and time journey and have relevance for understanding a number of the roots of the present-day tradition wars.
To some extent these symbols are a mashup of references which are supposed to specific the crossover between Egyptian, Center Japanese and Greek mythologies regarding life, loss of life and the afterlife and particularly the shared cultural crossover traits of feminine goddesses. My foremost reference for that was The Hebrew Goddess by anthropologist Raphael Patai. The pictures are stacked in order to exist in nobody location in time and area. It’s all the things . Amongst different issues, Asherah is surrounded by Egyptian Ka spirit and “false” doorways representing the passage between the worlds of the dwelling and the useless.
The tree leaves on the life-support tubes reference the Canaanite’s sacred Asherah poles, erected in excessive locations and close to altars, apparently one of many many subversive methods they violated God’s command to don’t have any different gods or to worship a created picture (Ex 20:3-6).
To a big extent these work are self-forming entities, and the position of photographs comes from the deliberate use of accidents and using stream-of-consciousness strategies.
You name the Asherah portray the offspring/descendant of one other time journey portray. Please clarify.
I used to be commissioned by a personal collector to do a chunk based mostly on (the above) Apries/Wahibre Haaibre (589–570 BC), the one pharaoh talked about by title within the Bible. Referred to as Hophra in Jeremiah 44:30, that portray is the Apries/Hophra Time Slip.
I knew little or no about Egyptian cosmology or who this queen of the heavens was that Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others spoke of, and this analysis despatched me down a really deep rabbit gap, which subsequently led to the Asherah Queen of Heaven portray. Jeremiah’s e-book was meant as a message to the Jews in exile in Babylon, explaining the catastrophe of exile as God’s response to Israel’s blasphemous worship of the queen of the heavens.
After a spectacularly disastrous navy marketing campaign to assist the Israelis resist the Persian invasion, Apries was overthrown and mutilated by his personal folks, supposedly on the orders of God himself.
The Egyptian goddess Qetesh options prominently on this portray as a tribute to her semetic roots and her typically affiliation with Asherah. I additionally included photographs which relate to using an Egyptian Apries obelisk in Rome, which was later excavated within the renaissance with an added base designed by Bernini. So actually, loads of time slipping happening there …
Are you a mystic your self, or do you simply really feel the auras this type of imagery exudes?
The fabric I’m drawing from exudes main aura, for positive. I’m undoubtedly not a mystic, though typically I really feel as if I’m functioning as a medium by channeling this materials and permitting the work to inform me what it needs to be.
