After an exploration of geometric morphological forms—the square, the rectangle, the circle, arrays of stripes, lines, and dots—time comes to bring the elements together. Abstract forms and representations of the Circle & Line series have led to easily recognizable landscapes. Thus, the artist returns to the structural forms of her youth but with the eyes and techniques of maturity. Solids, intense colors, and geometry, the Bibel hallmark, persists. In earlier series, architecture is reduced to core lines and buildings are seen mystically, the intensity and contrast of hues akin to that perceived with prolonged meditation and other means of altered consciousness. Aside from this psychological aspect, the art may be seen more fundamentally as orderly patterns of variously colored areas. Our consciousness and learning suggest familiar objects. Over time, the series has evolved from somewhat garish to more harmonious, mellow holistic hue combinations. From distant city skylines and close-up architectural forms, now comes new approaches, symbolic, further away from common reality. These works are constructed on a deeper philosophical foundation, a cosmos of gerunds and process, of holistic energetic elements. This page records probes when the Muse smiles. |
Debra Jan Bibel
MORPHOLOGIES:
City Synthesis — Metaphysics / Philosophy
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These images are part of an ongoing series begun in autumn 2008, This page is of experimental works derived from cityscapes and architecture.
NOTE: All reduced and overly processed images fail utterly in even hinting at the quality and true colors of the actual paintings and their effect on the viewer. |
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Christmas (2025), 30 × 30 in. The
circle and sphere have a self-contained completeness to them; they are
happy forms, as a child's balloon. During Christmas, the ornamental,
shiny spheres and round lights support joy. The close-up of such a tree,
the painting Christmas, attempts to express this emotion. The positive,
cheerful appearance of the circular ornaments and multi-colored lights
has experiential and neurological basis, as determined by functional MRI imaging. The processing of rounded forms involves different brain
regions than sharp, angular shapes. Consider how the rounded faces and
larger rounded eyes of babies, both human and animals, bring calm and
compassion, while triangles and a multitude of lines, suggesting spikes,
thorns, and insect legs, are viewed as hazards. With such contrasting
shapes in the painting — as well as an actual decorated tree —
undergoing the combination of brain activity, the circular elements
dominate and provide relief and pleasure. The solid colored smaller
circles as lights are crucial in feelings of warmth and fun. The
association with the season and religious/spiritual relationship with
circular purity and unity also comes into play. |
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Diptych: Islamic Circle al-Andalus [Córdoba Mosque] (2025), 36 × 24 in. |
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Diptych: Islamic Circle Blue Mosque (2024), 36 × 24 in. |
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Iguazu Mergings (2024), 24 × 36 in. |
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Iguazu (2024), 36 × 36 in. |
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Mind Tunnel (2024), 16 × 16 in. | |||
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Global
Climate Change II
(2024),
24 × 30 in.* The painting was designed akin to a NASA planetary flyby with a more interesting pattern. Psychological oddity: flipping the image 90° provides a more familiar astronaut perspective where the planet feels closer with a sense of movement toward the horizon. Turn this image upside down and the pattern suggests Antarctica, suggesting similar wind and atmospheric forces in shaping the continent.
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Every Thing Consists of Organized Atoms: Canyon
(2023),
40 × 30 in.* Derived from a snapshot taken of the Grand Canyon from an airplane, the painting can be viewed three ways depending on distance and thereby gain appreciation of its title. Up- close, only the abstraction of circles in zones of a limited palette of browns and purples is noted; further back the appearance of a canyon is discerned and the atomized effect is superimposed; at a greater distance, when circles are blended into the soil and rock, only the commonly regarded terrain dominates. The viewer can either approach from afar or begin near across the three distinct perceptive distances. |
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Perceive the wind,
perceive the dance
(2022),
36 × 36 in.
Influenced by New England tree hues
in autumn, the contrast of blue/orange can be perceived
dimensionally, with the lake seen as a hole in the above planar tree
array. |
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Zen (2022), 40 × 30 in.
Taken from an aerial view of a river in the Amazon basin,
with study it becomes more metaphoric. For instance, look
for patterns and the mind will play games, pareidolia. Sometimes words seem to form,
other times, different zones of light and dark, large and small, and near
and far are apparent, but the patterns shift around. Are the circles trees, or
atoms, or globular molecules? The river arrangement is representative of Tao, of wabi-sabi. Thus, the relatively simple composition, like an Asian one-stroke ink
brush drawing, opens psychologically and philosophically. |
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Perspectives
& Metaphysics: Bark I (2020),
30 ×
40 in.
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Perspectives
& Metaphysics: Bark II (2020),
30 ×
40 in.
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[above] Perspectives & Metaphysics: Ice Flows (2020), 40 × 30 in. [below] Perspectives & Metaphysics: Sky Stratus (2020), 40 × 30 in. | |||
The original painting derived from the photographic source is of ice flows. The vertical orientation suggests tree bark, with more distant trees on the pale side. For me, Bark II has the closest area in the left, but for Bark I it seems to be in the middle.
For exhibition, the
painting should be rotated 90° with intervals of daily up to 2
weeks. Painting is signed four times per canvas side. |
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The Living Night
(2017) * While based on a photograph, the color palette is altered to emphasize a living, vibrant, holistic city-organism. Night hides the flaws and dreariness of a city, and although it also obscures the joys of architectural detail, the nightscape takes on the magic of a bioluminescent landscape. |
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Another Buddhist painting, the nighttime street scene is the Itaewon entertainment district of Seoul, Korea without its crowds. Zen monks, one striking a moktok wooden percussion instrument, are present instead. The contrast of the gray-clad monks of different technique with the busy, flat geometric, multiple neon-lit street is obvious, but it does represent the meditative state of mind. The colors this time are essentially actual, taken from a photograph. Also in Interiors & Exterior Series |
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As If (our mosaic world) (2016), 36 × 18 in. In this illusive world, we see solids and smooth surfaces, but this is false at great magnifications. The world is a mosaic of fuzzy atoms whose composite reflected photonic image is cast upon our retina of individual cells, each providing neurological signals that are deconstructed as to line and shape and reconstructed and analytically correlated into categorical perceptions. The painting's shimmering sky and water represents such atomic dynamics and the fluidity of the environment surrounding a perceptively solid, steadfast city of Venice and its Rialto Bridge. |
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Sacred Geometry (2016), 48 × 24 in. In Buddhism, things are neither sacred nor secular, but our cosmos is defined by mathematics, and shape in part rules behavioral processes in chemistry, biochemistry, and material science. Taoist principles concern harmony and balance of dynamic forms and space. Thus, while not holy, geometric forms are wonderfully important. The painting consists of geometric shapes and in a way atomizes categorical structures. The painting is based upon the Chengyang Bridge in southern China.
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Archive of Memories (2015), 36 × 24 in. To be viewed afterwards with an associated hand-held red filter [as camera lens filter]
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The Harp of Brazil (2015), 48 × 24 in. Waves
and ripples are ephemeral patterns of movement within a larger
structure. The watercourse way, Tao, is the metaphor of interactive
processes of essentially no-thing, as is music.
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Sutra (2015), 30 × 24 in. × The building and wall is of a Korean monastery with the background being a composite of Korean mountains. The contrast in styles depicts the different perspectives of reality according to experiences within Hwa-om / Hua-Yen dharmahatu: the common way of solid, static, independent objects; the flowing, indistinct co-dependent elements of form; and the simultaneous perception of both within a larger framework. [Scientifically, try to visualize the world as interactive and flowing categorical constructions [behavioral patterns] of atoms and molecules]. |
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Discontinuities [perception & time-space] (2015), 36 × 24 in.* This work is derived from neurological processes and theoretical physics. |
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National Guardian (2015), 24 × 36 in. This is the Central Bank of Brazil in the Capital, Brasilia. |
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Fugue (2015), 24 × 24 in. | |||
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* Sold × Personal Collection |
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All images are
copyright by Debra Jan Bibel. Permission for use in electronic media or
for printed reproduction is required.
Links to this website are permitted only if artist identification is included in
direct view, not just within source code.
Rev. 1 Arpil 2025