Ronald Markham - Artist Statement
OTHER WORLDLY AFFAIRS
One of my basic rules in choosing subject matter for painting is that I prefer not to paint anything that can be photographed. This isn't so much a strict rule that I go by, but more of a simple guideline that I have followed in pursuing my art over the last several years. This means that for the most part I tend to avoid the here and now (That is: Earth today from a human perspective). Of course, I can't help but live in the here and now, but in my artwork I like to focus on other possible areas and try to bring them to light. These areas are what I refer to as other worlds. They include the worlds of the past and the future; (the realms of ancient history and science fiction) ...the 'where we came from' and 'where we are heading' worlds of yesterday and tomorrow from which I draw much inspiration. Scale has much to do with the definition and perception of worlds, just as our world looks different to us than it does to an ant. Thus, there can be many worlds within worlds and the universe can be described from the microscopic to cosmic levels and everything in between. It is in this sense that some of the other worlds can be taken literally in the context of the exploration of the cosmos. Mysterious places on Earth that exist today such as ancient sites, holy places, and natural wonders can be included in the other worldly because they have been considered by many to be sacred and can function as gateways to the past as well as the supernatural, or unknown. This brings to mind the possibility of other dimensions; worlds adjacent or parallel to our own world, which seem to occupy the same time and space that we do, yet like a radio, only perceivable at a different frequency than what we know as everyday reality. An example of this might be the idea of the afterlife; the continuing existence of souls and the places they inhabit like heaven, hell, or the spirit world. These are the same realms that shamans have channelled their artistic imagery from since the remote past. Modern science, which denies both the existence of spirits and their worlds, does acknowledge a sort of hallucinatory world which has the capacity to exist within every human mind. This world is defined through common visual entoptic phenomena and form constants that all humans share and perceive during altered states of consciousness. It is now widely believed that these symbols and patterns, wherever they came from, had formed the basis of our earliest artistic symbolism and language. Whatever the actual nature of these other worlds, whether hallucinatory or real, whether near or far in terms of either distance or time... they provide the common thread that loosely ties my art together. And while I am no shaman, my endeavor is a similar one; to try to bring these ideas, these times, these places, these other worldly affairs to the here and now.