Isabelle MALO, painter, exhibits at the MBAMSH Salon d’automne 2019 “Light in 150 variations” from October 12 to November 24, 2019 at the Museum of Fine Arts of Mont-Saint-Hilaire at 150, rue du Center-Civique, Mont Saint -Hilaire, Qc.
Through her work “The Circle of Life = Vital Lights“, the message she wants to convey in this painting, made using several superimposed mediums and also provided with an electronic device allowing an artificial lighting based on diodes, is based on research on light, a source of life inspired by the spirituality of Native Americans, where the circle and the spiral are symbols of their beliefs.
In the foreground, there is a white-light spiral, metal object with neon-style lights and silver and black metallic paint accents, extended in thin layers with a brush. We obtain a granular surface, symbolism of the obstacles of human life lived in a spiral. There is also a dark bird and fish barely lit, recalling that they are also dependent on the circle of life. The bird has an enlightened eye while the fish is close to death, deprived of light.
In the background, in the circle of life, humans, plants that intertwine in the mixed light, coming from both artificial lighting (light emitting diodes) but also from the sun and the moon.
In the third plane, total blackness, as antithesis to light.The symbol of the circle holds a primordial place in the Amerindian beliefs. For the North American Indian, whose culture is transmitted orally from generation to generation, rather than through writing, the importance of the circle has always been manifested in art and rituals. Men and women, the individual expressions of the forces of the world, move and feed in life in a circular motion or in an unbroken spiral. This circle is often referred to as the medicine wheel. Humans live, breathe and move, giving impulsive force to circular motion, provided they live in harmony, according to the vibrations of the circle. Each person has the chance to one day discover a way of living in communion with his environment, following these precepts.
“You have noticed that the Indian does everything in a circle, and that because the forces of the world always proceed in circles and that each thing tends to roundness. Formerly, when we were a strong and happy people, we drew all our power from the sacred ring, which guaranteed us prosperity as long as it remained intact. This knowledge has been transmitted to us from the outside world by our religion. The forces of the world always act in a circle. The sky is rounded and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are the stars. The wind, when it blows with force, swirls. The birds build their nests in circles, because they practice a religion identical to ours. The sun describes a circle above us. The moon does the same and the two stars are round. Even the seasons form a great circle, succeeding one another in an immutable order. Human life is also a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is with everything that is animated. Our tipis were round like bird’s nests and arranged in a circle, ring of the nation, the nest of nests where, according to the will of the Great Spirit, we raised our children. “
Black Elk Speaks, pp. 198-200 Spiritual adviser of Oglala Sioux in 1930