transubstantiation....

Henrique Oliveira. Transubstanciation. Plywood. 2013.
Installed in the Collège des Bernardins, Paris, France.

Transubstantiation. The doctrine that a material is more than a symbol, that it actually becomes god.

This is the basis of the best art.

out of the fire....

Henrique Oliveira. Dead Fire (detail). Burned plywood. 2012

Out of the fire the wood escapes, scorched but not consumed. Coiling and twisting like a nest of massive snakes, of blind basilisks. Rejecting its fate. Rebellious.

Henrique Oliveira. Dead Fire.

Henrique Oliveira. Dead Fire (detail).

While a few years earlier, a fireplace leaks a dark puddle (blue sky reflecting on the surface of the deep). Flames quenched.

Out of the fire, water.

Kate MccGwire. Slick. Mixed media with magpie feathers. 2010

See more about Kate MccGwire in the following posts: holy waters; collecting as art practice; and the luminescence of the night sky.

the spiralling dance

Henrique Oliveira. Desnatureza. Plywood. 2011

Like two giant snakes, reaching up from the earth, reaching down from the sky, reaching each other. Locked in a forever embrace.

Together they are the world tree. The axis mundi.

They are the double helix, the two strands of our DNA. The spiralling dance of our once and future creation.