Millstone Portal

Millstone Portal is a continuation of my focus on the ideas of change, transformation, and transcendence, specifically as they relate to the human condition. In applying these ideas I try to convey how we are all trapped in time, constantly changing and transforming, while also continuing to seek solace, escape and transcendence from our unsettling dilemma.

To represent these ideas in Millstone Portal I have brought together four motifs I have used in the past - a wall, multiple figures, a window or portal, and a transcendent space. In minimizing the number of motifs I am following my tradition of periodically creating minimal works instead of more complex ones. Simplifying compositions so as to allow the viewer to see the essence of the work in a single glance.

In Millstone Portal the wall represents a manmade, earth-bound object that prevents humanity from ascending to a spiritually transcendent space. Formally it serves as a dark and highly textured barrier that contrasts sharply in both color and texture with the human figures. In addition, the structure of the wall, with its multiple concentric-circular formation, represents de facto or stylized millstones.

Sandwiched in between the millstone formations are gray lifeless figures. They are intertwined with one another and represent humanity as a whole. Their hands and feet are expressive only in their silence and lack of desperation. Envisioning the millstones turning conjures how the figures are grist and will be inevitably transformed and dispersed into the transcendent space, becoming part of the glowing world beyond.

The twelve-sided window represents the twelve hours of a clock, or time generally. Its opening gives us a view to a more hopeful existence. Gazing through the window we see an idealized cloud formation with a series of radiants emanating from the center. The shape of both the cloud formation and its center restate the shape of the opening of the window, which helps create a diminishing size perspective. Note too that the perspective pulls the viewer's eye into the transcendent space, which is also the center of the painting.

With its reduction of motifs Millstone Portal provides a clear glimpse of two worlds - the stark, harsh, earth-bound life of the human condition and the blue light-filled glitteringly serene space of hope beyond.

- Brian Mains, January 2021