Symbiosis: A Living Field
1. How it began
Early this year, Janaki Peart invited me to join her and a few other artists in a collaboration for a show at Rogue Pop-Up Gallery in October. I thought it sounded interesting and said yes.
We began at Janaki’s studio, working together on a large abstract painting. As we painted, we talked about what we could see in it, what seemed to be emerging, and how we might make a story out of what was in front of us.
2. Learning to share a painting
At first, I had some questions of ego to deal with. I would find myself thinking, “Why is she painting over my bits?”
But she wasn’t painting over my bits. She was painting on the painting. There weren’t any parts of it that belonged exclusively to me. Once I understood that, things began to work much better.
We decided there would be no rules. We were both quite anarchic in our approach, and neither of us wanted to impose rules on the other. Of course, we still had to work together. For me, that meant having the freedom to make a decision without waiting for the other person to approve every move.
That freedom was quite an experience. We could each respond to the painting as we saw fit, while paying attention to what was happening between us and in the work.
3. Drawing and talking together
We made lots of little drawings together, one after another, while talking about subjects that interested us both. The drawing helped us loosen up. After a while, we could work without thinking so hard about every mark. The work itself became the thing we were following.
We talked about movement, form, and all the usual formal questions. Where did the painting need something? Where were parts hanging about without doing anything? Where did it feel sluggish? How could we get it moving?
Alongside those questions, there was often a storyline connected to the experiences of our minds. We were trying to make the painting understandable to both of us, talking openly about what we saw and what we felt it needed.
4. Following ideas and checking assumptions
Our conversations wandered through the Hermetic tradition, Kabbalah, the Western mysteries, and some Hindu ideas. We also talked about quantum physics and quantum entanglement: what we understood about them, how we imagined they worked, and where those ideas might have meaning for us.
Janaki’s AI assistant, Echo, sometimes helped us check facts and question our assumptions. It could be quite a surprise to discover how little of what I thought I knew stood up to checking. There was plenty to learn.
We also talked about consciousness. My understanding was a little different from Janaki’s, and those conversations encouraged me to do more research. I began to understand her thinking better and to see gaps in my own.
One idea I kept returning to was whether consciousness might exist in different forms and degrees of complexity, perhaps even at very simple levels. I was trying to work out what making a choice might mean in that picture. These were questions we explored together, and they became part of the conversation around the work.
5. The sculptures we haven’t resolved
We had originally intended to make sculptures. That was one of the reasons Janaki invited me.
We tried a few things and developed a story around a teapot. There was something promising in it, but we never quite found what its final form should be. The beginnings were there; the resolution wasn’t.
Something similar happened with the chair story. We had an interesting starting point, but it didn’t quite hang together.
Those ideas may be worth returning to another time. I think we will work together again, and there may still be something waiting in them.
6. Two experiences meeting in one work
What fascinated me was how two separate subjective experiences could meet in one painting.
We each brought our own way of seeing and our own experience. Yet we could work side by side, sometimes at the same time, on this object outside ourselves. We would recognise some of the same things in it and work towards a shared understanding of what it might become.
For me, it felt like moving towards an idea of shared consciousness. That is a way of describing the experience: our minds dancing together, making a simple little jig that ends up on an object called a painting.
I also learned a great deal by watching Janaki paint. Her approach is different from mine, and it was fascinating to see it closely and to find something of it emerging in my own marks and movements.
I think something similar happened for her. Our lines began to blend into a soup—a stew, a broth, a brew. Something made together.
7. What I’m taking away
The collaboration gave me a renewed appetite for making art. After drawing so much together, I would go home and want to keep going. I began making scribbles, drawings, and paintings every day. I became quite excited about the practice of continually making things.
As an octogenarian, it has also been a great experience to work with someone half my age. We come from different generations and, in some ways, different cultural worlds. Yet we were able to develop a close relationship through the paintings.
We could speak frankly about what we were seeing, what interested us, and what we were trying to work through. That openness became part of making the art together.
It has been an extraordinary experience, and I thank Janaki for inviting me.