DomeRock-SoulTemple (the Awakening)

"DomeRock-SoulTemple (The Awakening)" 2011   Oil on canvas, 36" x 36"

This is the most ardently symbolic painting I have done to date.  A narrative depiction of the "Temple Domini" or Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem under threat of destruction by forces greater than itself, a metaphorical parable which grew out of the crushing emotions I felt after the devastating events of March 11, 2011 at Fukushima Prefecture, on the island of Japan.  Deliberate reference is made to those "destruction events" in their terrible triadic succession:  earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown--by the empty kimono that floats into frame at top left of the canvas.

If the temple itself symbolically enshrines the "Foundation Stone" of our roots in ancient cultures (Islamic, Christian and Hebrew) and their corollary moral codes, the Dome of the Rock claims the singular distinction of the penultimate architecture, rivaled only by Mecca, as the Holiest Place on Earth--the Alpha and Omega of human civilization, the place where Armageddon is to unfold according to the prophets.  It is not without significance that this temple and the Temple Mount on which it stands, steps away from the Wailing Wall, is under constant armed guard by Muslim caretakers and that Jews and non-Muslims currently have restricted access to it.  (Neither is it without significance that this temple is depicted on the reverse of the Iranian 1000 rial banknote).

Hostile parties have bitterly fought over ownership of this monument with the gilded dome for successive generations.  While the painting employs as metaphor the old apocryphal vision of Armageddon, it also evokes the reality of contemporary crises:  the surging seas brought on by global warming, the race for energy and power at the cost of planetary degradation and an ever rising tide of blood (the blood of martyrs) from ceaseless wars and regional conflicts, in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.

In this painting I tried to imagine not only the destruction of the temple but to simultaneously celebrate its demise:  to envision the end of institutions that have outlived their usefulness to humanity and continue to impede the evolution of human consciousness.  "SoulTemple" alludes to that spiritual dwelling of the future, where all souls co-mingle and converge, that have peered into the many mirrored apertures of human history in order to dispel all illusion so that a new temple of human construction can be realized, transcendent and indestructible.