Body meets Soul: Artist research/ Gregory Halili

My initial reaction to the project brief is to make a few separate pieces of work, disembodied body parts, but with the idea of them all belonging to the different people who have made me me, by birth literally and by influence.

A self portrait that looks at the heritage and spirituality and the nurture vs nature of being human.Something to bring together the many aspects of human experience.

I will experiment with different mediums and research areas of interest to see what visuals and materials will help to speak what it is I'm trying to say.

This idea is sparked by Gregory Hillis eye portraits of his wife painted on mother of pearl to represent the sun and moon cycles. I think they are visually beautiful  and intriguing works encompassing spirituality and symbolism of the sun the moon and the eyes being a window to the soul and the sentimentality of making a portrait of his wife

" Gregory Halili was born in the Philippines, and moved to this country with his family as a teenager. He lived in the New York City area after receiving his B.F.A. from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia until about a year ago, when he and his family decided to return to the Philippines. Over the years on trips to the Philippines he visited outdoor markets, fish markets, and immersed himself in the culture of “local” life. Five years ago at the outdoor markets he spotted mother-of-pearl shells, larger and more splendid than any shells he had ever seen. He wanted to utilize this beautiful rare and raw material in his work. His first paintings in oil on mother-or pearl are “eyes.”

"Mostly they depict his wife’s eyes in the tradition of the “eyes of the beloved.” He traces the circadian rhythm of sleep to waking, the eye is closed, slowly opens in a progression of circles and ellipses, opens wide, and then slowly closes at the end of each cycle. His works entitled “Sunrise” and “Moonrise” consist of approximately nine shaped discs, which the artist cuts and sands from a large mother-of-pearl shell. “Sunrise” is painted in oil on a gold-lipped mother-of-pearl shell; “Moonrise” is oil on a silvery black mother- of-pearl shell.

"MOONRISE III" 2014

Halili writes of his “eyes:”

“Throughout history humans have believed the eye is the window to the soul. I am interested in the idea of how the eye can transcend religion, become universal and evoke emotion.”

Following the late 18th century English tradition of the eye of the beloved, Halili uses the eye as a symbol of both human and cosmic existence."

Taken from the Nancy Hoffman Gallery website.

I love this so much, visually its beautiful and intriguing, the materials he uses are naturally iridescent and add a layer of magic. I like the way he describes the work, that it has a human and cosmic element. Taking a physical aspect of being human and incorporating it into the natural, cycle of the sun and the moon, the devotional/spiritual aspect and the labour of love involved in what essentially is a portrait of his wife.

These are all aspects of being human that I would like to bring into my own project. I want to combine aspects of the physical and the spiritual with the environment of the body and the environment of the heart.

References:

https://www.nancyhoffmangallery.com/gregory-halili-memento