Kim Schrag 

The human being is elusive, hard to define, but always in the mysterious context of Life. While it is easier to focus on the day to day details of being human, I have to take into consideration my presence within Life.  Often I don’t see it, feel it, or acknowledge it as I am so taken by my individual concerns. When I do wake up to Life, it’s fully here and now. Everything I perceive and feel is Life. Even my thoughts are within this existence.  Of course I may not see and feel all that is here to see and feel, but I know that in any direction I turn, my primary relationship will be to Life. It is all too easy to be consumed by some aspect of the personal, to stay with my small concerns, chasing my self-interest or licking the wounds of discontent.  But to see the whole picture requires taking a step back to gain perspective. This implies watching the interactions between mind and body, between individual and social concerns, between my security and sustenance, and the planetary environment I inhabit.  To see the whole picture reveals that I don’t exist in isolation, but only in relationship – from the air that flows into the body as I breathe, to the social exchanges that I must make for my food and shelter; from the universe that this earthly home floats within, to my mind within the universal mind.

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What am I related to? What am I separate from? What is the human being? What is society? What is Life? These paintings are an invitation to look, to awaken to who we are, to awaken to Life.