The 'Pentaptych' continues... the 'vaginal' cave of The Dragon

‘Symbolism is as old as the human ability to link ideas and beliefs with objects and occurrences in the world. Integral to ancient Eastern philosophy and Western medieval traditions, the study of symbolism was powerfully revived in the twentieth century through interest in the psychology of the unconscious: in myths, dreams, and visions; and in literature and art, especially surrealism’. (Cirlot, 2014)
A proposal for a research study through practical methodology, set design and sound based performance into the form and fear of irregular shapes; in particular to the colour or tone known as Black; (Melanophobia (Dictionary, 2003)), in relation to my current work as an international painter (Buckman, 2004) concerning imagery associated with the rise of Isis as ‘Other’ perceived by the West (Warren, 2016-2017) and the role of the ‘artist’ as a ‘creative terrorist’ and interpreter/observer of one’s own times developing ideas around viewer reception of contemporary installations with application to continuing professional development as a Painter. The material being used is slate, a carbon compound which shatters violently when struck, (I intend to use this characteristic of the material to ‘portray’ violent acts such as detonation within the human form in its many guises) and discarded cardboard packaging as a comment on a throw away consumer based society.  

I work in differing series but if there was a theme perhaps it would be one of 'fragmentation'; of light through colour or as now, working with a material that literally fragments. I 'made' a painting, as opposed to 'painting' a painting, of the end of the world titled ‘Elemental Manifestation’! In this painting occurred a shape resembling a shrouded figure. The painting was banned by an international art gallery out of fear of inciting public unease. People’ interpreted the shape as that of an Islamic figure in a Burka; a suicide bomber, ‘the other’, equating such a shape to represent a modern ‘devil’.
 
The juxtaposition of the banned black flag (ISIS); and the counter position of the flag known as The Cross of St. George, with its contradictory ‘othering’ - cultural generalizations that divided the peoples of the world into the artificial, binary-relationship of "The Eastern World and The Western World", the dichotomy which identified, designated, and subordinated the peoples of the Orient as the Other—as the non–European Self by differing countries cultural politics such as, Catalonia, Lithuania, Portugal, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Beirut, Malta, Palestine (home of his Mother), not to mention the cities of Istanbul, Moscow, and Venice.
I am continuing to explore this reaction in my ‘Wall of Gold’ Open Winter Studio in Cornwall, 2017, through use of a motif based upon Paolo Uccello’s ‘St George and the Dragon’ (Uccello, 1470) depicting a conflict of Eastern and Western ideology through visual imagery” (Warren, 2014).