Del Rey Loven Floating Shrine III

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Del Rey Loven

Floating Shrine III

(in Memoriam, Frank Stella)

2015-2024

Acrylic on Paper

Mounted on Wooden Armature

12 x 24 feet x 14 inches

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Floating Shrine Series

This is my holy mountain of enlightenment. It is splitting itself open to reveal the mystery of its inner life, signified by the rainbow bridge in its center. It alludes to the quest for Truth, by both mystic and scientist: to find in this physical world a gateway to deeper knowledge and higher awareness.

Its upper sides have hot flags of fire, signaling energy emanating from this “splittingopen” event. The bottom three triangles form a base that is configured like an upsidedown mountain range. Just as mountains on the other side of our planet are upside down in orientation to where we physically stand in Cleveland, so the mountains on the bottom are portrayed upside-down so that the painting becomes an entity untethered to earth. In this way, the Floating Shrines (three in the series thus far) are conceived as levitating like planets with their own internal gravity.

The composition is configured around a pyramidal/mountain form. Both pyramids and mountains, as well as shrines of all sorts, have been the destination of pilgrimages and often associated with the search for hidden knowledge and spiritual enlightenment.

To avoid the stasis of total symmetry in these paintings, the center axis is tilted to the right. This dynamic element is compounded by the differences in color and pattern between the two largest triangles, yet the viewer’s cognitive faculties tend to resolve these contrasts, and unites the forms in what is known as “the phenomenology of perception.” The enjoyment of this experience does not depend on knowledge of art history; it is straightforward and direct, but it does require sustained looking.

The three shrines in this series (pictorially) float free of earth’s gravity. In this newest three-dimensional version, Floating Shrine III (In Memoriam, Frank Stella), the individual shapes float free from the wall and from each other for the first time. This “floating” aspires to be experienced by the viewer as an elevation of consciousness to a plane above the cares of this world.

-Del Rey Loven

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