My painting reflects on the ultimate human need to fulfill an intrinsic longing that extends from birth to death. Simply put, it is a need to be held. My art symbolically speaks to this notion, especially with darkness (black) embracing light (color), with negative space enclosing positive space, and with texture as human skin calling out to be touched. I choose to paint primarily on grocery bag paper. In my process this surface is surrogate for human skin that reflects life, especially so, when the heavy paper is saturated with pigments and oils. The concept of using something that was once a utilitarian container also speaks to the theme of being held. At times my paintings follow a path wherein they are recycled back into yet another painting, as if they were sacrificing themselves for a greater work. Therefore the painting is never finished, it is only at rest. Such a process is known as kenosis or purging of the essence within each painting to create a greater work of art. In the same manner I will see a glimpse of a sacred dimension in a famous work of art, and I allow the extension of that work to sit, reside, and grow into something else in my art. Such examples of working in this manner would be the poems of St. John of the Cross, the minimal paintings of Thomas Merton, and the Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. Each work of art is a devotion. Each work of art is a phone call home to the Trinity. This process is born out of contemplative thought with the pursuit of works that require a deconstruct so they may take on their own contemplative life. Working on grocery bag paper permits this direction in a very natural way. All real beauty finds rest on a stage of humility–even a grocery bag. This manner of working becomes a creative conductor that allows my process to become centering prayer, a means to listen–and to be held.

-eyes of humility see perfectly

-the mystery of seeing is seeing the mystery

-there is one supreme creative act–the Eucharist

-when I pick up the brush I am handed the Eucharist

-each of my paintings are a reflection of a phone call home to the Trinity

-all artists are only midwives that enable creativity to emerge from the eternal

-the anointing of oil brings physical healing, through oil paint I seek a visual healing

-beauty always moves in three parts as is discovered in nature through the golden mean and the Trinity

-the gist of the Lords Prayer appears to be a long version of an unspeakable prayer to be abandoned unto God

-if the beauty of that which is seen was created by the unseen, then how much more beautiful is that which is unseen?

-the blind gestalt of our life is that God comes to us hidden as ourselves, embracing us from the womb to our last loving breath of grace

-true beauty is received on a stage of humility, Christ born in a cave, the cross revealing power in weakness–even sacred paintings on a grocery bag

Daniel Bonnell