Aarik Emerging. Oil on canvas on panel, 13 by 84 inches. 2014-2016. Click the image above for a large version.
My friend Aarik Danielsen is a writer, a preacher, a father, a reader, a thinker, a worker, a lover of his wife and of his life and of the small joys that can pass between people who strive to connect. He’s a willing participant in art and music and making of all kinds. He wants to tell the truth about time and meaning and God. He wants to be thoughtful and honest in all that he does. He is a gentle, genuine soul.
Aarik Emerging, detail. Click for large view.
Two years ago I began a project to bring Aarik into my Becoming the Student project. He was willing to go along with my strange request to turn off all the lights in my studio and press my ancient flatbed scanner against his head… for 30 minutes. These scans became the basis for the painting that you see here.
Above: A shot of Aarik from the studio when I was making the scans…
Aarik Emerging, detail. Click for large view.
Aarik Emerging, detail. Click for large view.
Usually I have an interview to go along with these posts. The thing is that it seems to me that an interview – short, minor, without range – would minimize who Aarik tries to be. This observation isn’t meant to degrade my other Becoming the Student posts. I know they are limited. But I guess with Aarik’s what I wanted to do was focus on his emergence as a father. This painting is a celebration of his transformation – a chosen transformation – into a father. All that being a dad entails is strange and hard. None of us who are dads really know how to do it. And we all deal with issues we never thought we’d have to. So this image of a man appearing out of thick darkness, his characteristics manifesting in tenuous and tenebrist ways, is symbolic of every father’s attempt to become what he believes he ought. The multiplicity of it; each situation bringing about change and instantaneous adaptations… It’s where I find myself and where I imagine Aarik finds himself. It’s a holy discombobulation, fatherhood. One in which we fail moment by moment. By grace we try again.
Thank you for doing that, Aarik – trying and trying again. By grace.
eikonktizo 
tenebrist ways
Matthew,
There is an honesty here that is quite exceptional. That is honestly exceptional! Your painting reveals what was reached for and obtained, an honest view, an unadulterated momentary thought of your model, as human bean, as father, as friend. You have developed/or are developing into an artist how’s talents quite literally out measure themselves. You have/are becoming far better than your own experience. True in several but few disciplined endevers. Painting and Preaching being two just off the top of my head. Martin Luther attained such a level in Preaching. Matthew is working his way in on painting.
When he first picked up that crayon as a child………..who knew?
Thank you Matthew. It is us who might attain enlightenment through you.
Regards
Geo