This character is a Psychopomp or "Guide of Souls" - a mythic figure responsible for providing souls with safe passage to the afterlife. In Jungian terms, the psychopomp acts as a mediator between the conscious and unconscious realms. I thought developing a character based on that idea would be a great way to start visualizing a new world that I'm developing.
The basic idea of this project is to re-interpret the archetypes of the Monomyth from the mythic imagination of a people that have survived ages after our current civilization has collapsed. If humanity reverted to primal levels of culture and reason and mythology regained it's necessity to the human psyche, what would the myths be? How would a neo-primal culture interpret mythical archetypes in a post-collapse world? What would their creation myths be? What would their heroic myths be? What mysteries of existence would their myths express? What stories would they tell to explain the remnants of our decaying civilization?
These are the things floating around in my head to inspire me going forward with this and this Guide of Souls will hopefully help lead me to the unconscious realms where the creativity for this new project lies.
Pretty heady talk for what's basically a proof of concept.
awesome piece man, that facial expression is so great! Good to see some new art from ya.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about similar things too-with the acceleration of technology, it could be that this space of transition opens up a space where all these universal themes of apocalypse, transcendance etc are magnified.
I think maybe p k dick had some modern ways of presenting old gnostic ideas, with technology and information being that mediator between different worlds.
beautiful piece Nigel - one of your best!
ReplyDeleteLove the theme you are pursuing too...like Rod those thoughts are usually on my mind....perhaps it's the singularity !
Thanks, guys!
ReplyDeleteRodrigo! Thanks for the kind words. Always great to hear from you, I hope all is well. Interesting thoughts, we'll have to talk more about this for sure. I'd love to bounce some ideas off you some time.
Scotty! Thanks, really appreciate it! I had to google "the singularity" and the concept is very intriguing. I could see something like that playing a part in the pre-history of this world.
P.S. Just saw proofs for the Isis prints - they look awesome!