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Quartet of Ideograms: After a creative hiatus of 6 months during which the new book Resonance was published, comes a return to Chinese ideograms in a different stylistic exploration. Chosen for their spatial arrangement of strokes and spaces, not for meaning, four ideograms serendipitously could be arranged, with poetic license, to an interesting sentence.

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The diptych Form / Emptiness are derived ideograms referring to the Buddhist Heart Sutra (the core of the large philosophical Prajaparamita treatise), which states "form is emptiness, emptiness is form." It points toward process metaphysics, behavioral attributes, quantum fundamentals and observational dependency, concluding that existence is not based on nouns or stuff but on gerunds, verbal actions that serve as nouns, and are mutually dependent.

In English, the first character is translated to "form," but Chinese has several characters that are synonyms pertaining to form. The sutra ideogram itself, found in Korea and Japan as well, variously means, depending on context (usually specified by a follow-up ideogram), appearance, or hue, or substance, or the material world; however, artistically, aesthetically it is inferior to the one substituted for this work, which means appearance, shape, and form by structure or conceptual category. A third ideogram synonym might have worked in the sutra, as it refers to domain, territory, boundary, or indeed the world itself, everything in perceptive existence.

[The painting Form is self-referential via brush strokes. The form of the Form ideogram has common vertical brushing while the green background space is irregular, turbulent, chaotic.]

The second stylized Chinese character in the sutra is typically translated as emptiness or void or space or hole. These meanings imply duality in being absent with respect to something. Another way to translate it, particularly for this sutra (which presents paradox), is "no-thingness."

The background of this painting Emptiness suggests a rainbow or prismatic color spectrum. A rainbow from ancient times has been a symbol of a non-thing thing. A rainbow is not a substance, but an untouchable appearance dependent on the angle of observation [40-42°] with water droplets serving as a prism that splits composite white light into the spread of component hues. We nonetheless name that form and can describe it, hence becoming perceptively real, but it does not exist alone.

In Daoism, Lao Tzu's treatise begins with "the Dao that can be named is not Dao." In the Bible, the first act Adam assigned himself was to name the beasts in the field and birds in the air, everything in the world, hence causing separation and differentiation. In the quantum world, the packet of energy that comes out of the void, or itself, can act as a particle that individually and collectively behaves as a wave depending on observational/detectional design. In the Hindu Upanishads, the expression is neti, neti, not this, not that. In the common world, we concretize the metaphor.

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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 a 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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The viewer of this painting may enjoy the eye play of circles and be philosophically aware of the emotional responses to the appearance of changing patterns. The scientist, however, will appreciate that Lizard is the idealized depiction of the skin of these creatures, based on the desert green lizard and the tropical chameleon.

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Classic and traditional, the still life [besides a study device for developing technique] emphasizes composition, balance, and color harmony however many the elements. Moreover, it presents a means to appreciate the simplicity and form of common objects, finding beauty and interest in shape, texture, hue, and tone. The very painting style in still life can create a mood that supports reflection on life, transience, and cultural meaning, a visual metaphor. It pauses our thoughts and instills tranquility. Bibel's only still life, The Circle of Still Life, continues her artistic meditation on the circle, here found in all the East-West manufactured and natural components.

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Debra Jan Bibel

MORPHOLOGIES:
An Exploration, An Evolution

Fresh Paint

This page features the latest visual compositions, completed in 2024 to 2026. Because the page will change with each new opus, monitor the page periodically. The images may also be found among the galleries.

NOTE: All reduced and overly processed images fail utterly in even hinting at the quality and the true colors of the actual paintings and their effect on the viewer.

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The year 2025 begins with the first part of a diptych: Islamic Circle. The circle is key symbol in Islam. The circle is found with domes, in tile arabesques, and other wall ornamentation. It represents unity, wholeness or totality, cycles of seasons and generations, and the eternal without beginning or end.  Blue Mosque is on the right side. To emphasize the circular elements of the architecture and design depicted in this work of the Blue Mosque [Sultan Ahmed Mosque] in Istanbul, the composition eliminated the vast filigree, rounded the corners of the wide 8-sided polygon symbols, Rub-el-Hizb, into circles and ovoids, and reduced the detailing, as the stained glass windows and calligraphy. Moreover, the magenta and red oxides of the mosque were changed to greens and browns. Green is associated with Muhammed, as it was his favorite color, and green means life in the desert. The mosque was completed in 1610. On the left: Circles and scalloped arcs are found throughout the mosque in Cordoba, Spain, first constructed in 788 and then expanded in stages This painting Al-Andalus is of the maqsurah section and qibla wall with mihrab entrance at lower righ and skylight above, built by al-Hakam II in 966. Interestingly, Roman corinthion columns are included as decorative wall reliefs, probably via the; craftsmen sent by Emperor Nicephoros II of Byzantium.

 From the dawn of civilization the circle has spiritual and formal religious significance. Suggestive of cycles, as the seasons and moon changes, and the eternal, the never-ending, the circle has been found as Neolithic ceremonial sites, particularly common in the British isles. Burial mounds worldwide are also circular. The round table, made famous in the Camelot myth, has been adopted as a symbol of equality and is found in the United Nations Security Council and other international organizations. Cycle Circle depicts the most famous Neolithic circle of stones, Stonehenge, which is a solstice observatory that also marks the cycle of eclipses. The rain and snow globular circles are themselves symbolic — the water cycle from precipitation to creek to river to ocean to clouds and return to mist, rain, snow, and ice. The lichen growth on stones are roughly circular.

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One of the practices of mindfulness-of-mind meditation is being a 'fair witness' of the spontaneous thoughts and emotions that arise and almost immediately dissolve or fade without attaching associations or judgments. The beginning meditator will find one thought rapidly following another and the mind will chase after them, expanding, and linking them with other thoughts, which is known as monkey mind. In extended practice the mind narrows, concentrates, with fewer thought bubbles. Also bubbles of emotion can arise without context, just feelings of sadness, anger, bliss, and so forth. Examining the origins and form of these thoughts and emotions provide lessons in cause-effect and aid in spiritual development. Most spontaneous thoughts relate to past events or future planning, far less so to the present. This painting, Thought Bubbles, is a visual metaphor of this mindfulness, bubbles being neurological 'noise' or subconsciousness processing with some patterns rising, shifting into conscious-awareness.
 

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Seemingly abstract, this painting is fully representational. Symbolic of trees, the green circles are arrayed as contour lines as on a topographic map. Moreover, circles on the higher elevations are increasingly larger, as trees would be so when viewed from above. Hence, the painting has a quasi three-dimensional perspective. Indeed, it is a precise map of an area in Northern California, in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. It consists of some 5,560 circles. Its title is Ironside Mountain Lookout.

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The circular/spherical boulders in this painting, Talus, represent ideals; however, actual gravel, loose scree, fixed talus and also boulders, from mountain erosion and falls or volcanic ejection, can be semi-polished by abrasion of moving water (liquid or frozen) and even by wind and waves. Such rounded rocks are found behind receding glaciers and especially dried river beds [wadis]. Boulder or talus fields are also found on Mars.

(left) Form
(right) Emptiness

Not proper Chinese but separately ideograms mean community action / give, pay, or compensate / wing / islands, shoals, or continents, or more poetically
We all fly to the islands.

Links to enlargements:     we    give   wing    islands  

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All images are copyright by Debra Jan Bibel.  Permission for use in electronic media or for printed reproduction is required. 

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