Apollonian Morning Drawing

I was born in Cuba twenty-three years ago. My place of birth was, among other things, responsible for my early roots in Romanticism. With small cities amidst sweeping valleys, simple country folks and shiny beaches (inaccessible to our northern neighbors) - is it any wonder that I became a Romantic? Ironically, time granted me the experience of Romanticism before its artistic definition. The latter arrived in high school, when I learned about English romantic poetry and experienced the works of such artists as J.M.W. Turner, Thomas Cole, William Blake, and Goya. In the fall of 2006 I entered Davidson College. It was there during my freshman year that my philosophy of art began to give way to a certain uncertainty fueled by my exposure to modernism. As I opened myself to the artistic trends of the twentieth century my interest in Romanticism waned. Suddenly, there was a historical hydra before me with many heads, and the only way to conquer it was to start thinking about thinking, and other such "nonsense." What is the subconscious? How do you go about exploring it? Is there anything beyond it? These and many other questions lead me to the Surrealists, the Minimalists, the Abstract Expressionists, and others. Towards the end of my college career I ended up immersed in the study of religion. Specifically, I became interested in the Hindu philosophy of yoga and its emphasis on the exploration of consciousness. That was when I decided to start drawing circles. This geometric shape - traditionally associated with unity, infinity, and enlightenment - is, in my opinion, a fitting symbol for the ambivalent philosophy of Post-Modernism.