the assignment was to paint a self portrait, representational or otherwise. instead of painting a regular self portrait, i decided i would paint the cocept of no-self, the buddhist doctrine of no-self/no-soul, called 'anatta'. you see, in buddhism, its thought that the concept of self that we are all familar with is an illusion. the idea of you being a seperate being from the rest of existence is a fallacy, an illusion created by what are called the five aggregates. the five aggregates are the elements that construct our illusion. they are: matter, sensation, perception, mental formation, and finally conciousness. the painting itself is a representation of those five aggregates overlapping to create the concept of self.
first, we have matter, symbolized by the universe, the starry mass of existence in the middle. its the physical representation of our world; particles whizzing around, making up the material world we know.
second, we have sensation, which is the large tan-ish mass of brushstrokes on the left. sensation is where we feel either negative or positive, the very beginning of the contrast that will begin to communicate our existence, (sidenote: i took the picture of my painting outside.... the shiny highlights coming off the brushstrokes aren't necessarily there in other lighting conditions). these thick brush strokes are just the beginning of our world, the most basic of our sensation of reality.
next we have perception, the large black criss-crossing lines on the top left. this is where our sense perceptions come in, we gain more knowledge about our reality. patterns start to emerge, things begin to make sense out of the mass of negative and positive in the sensation level.
after that, we have mental formation. mental formation is symbolized by the large circular holes and the oozing green... these are our thoughts, our actions, our karma-creating acts which affect our lives. from the sensations and perception of the previous levels we begin to get a clearer picture of reality. things become more complex (the shapes become three dimentional and more interesting). our existence take a fairly clear shape.
finally, we have conciousness, our awareness of self, the culmination of all aggregates before it. i'm aware of the concept of myself, but i'm also aware of the concept of not actually existence. however, saying that you don't exist and truely realizing it are two different things. i can say it all i want, but until i fully become aware of myself as a non-entity, i cannot become enlightened, i cannot break the cycle of samsara (the endless pattern of death and rebirth that we constantly repeat because of our attachments, particularly our attachments to the concept of being alive and a person). so there i am, sitting at the edge of the universe, marveling at the infinite grandure of the universe and creation. i'm not quite to that door yet, not quite ready to make that step and release myself back to the fold of everything. at least, not quite yet.

this work is important for me... its the biggest painting i've done so far (32 x 24), and i really feel it brings my game to a new level, in terms of creativity and technique. so, i'm quite proud of it. i'm interested in feedback concerning the concept behind the painting and its symbolic execution, as well as just the pure asthetics (color, composition, ect) of the painting. or any feedback really. ... much thanks to anybody who cares to leave a comment.