The idea of "Absence Presence" began as a prompt that my art professor assigned his graduate students several years ago over spring break. This was when I first really began to use Photoshop as a fine arts medium. I became entranced with the concept of "absence presence," and at the time, I felt that I never quite captured what it meant until now.
This piece began with a photograph of the Salter Staircase in the Loretta Chapel located in Santa Fe. I had just (for lack of a better term) "awakened" a few months earlier and felt called to visit this site.The first time I went to the chapel, I was met with a crowd of people blocking the view of the staircase, many of whom were taking pictures. I decided to sit off to the side to wait for the crowd to die down. As I was waiting, I began meditating and sat still to just be. I began to see the energy and the sacred geometry that created the staircase itself. The beauty was seeing how all of these layers culminated to create what the tourists saw as the staircase. To me this is "absence presence." My dimensional sight allowed me to see what many others could not. It's not even that what I saw was hidden, because it was fully present. It was that I allowed myself to see this gift, that appeared absent to others.
"Absence Presence" is a layering of a photograph of the staircase along with mathematical equations that create a spiral. I have also added in layers or various forms of sacred geometry. This piece only begins to show what I had witnessed four years ago. I wanted to capture the beauty, awe and (at times) the confusion of the moment as I witnessed realities layering on top of one another.
