The Museum
Kaeti MacNeil II°
Inner Court Essays
Awaken
9” x 9”;
ink and gouache on watercolor paper
2017
In this first image, the boundary between the known and the unknown, the land and the sea, is split by the sickle. Within this
space, the eye awakens with the shutter opening. This reveals a primal matter of self, the entrance to one’s hidden aspects.
This represents a moment of awakening where a clearer view of the self is possible. The perceived world is up-ended by the
experience, the raging sea above and the treacherous land below. Flipping the painting upside-down, the perceived world
appears upright, as the sickle and black hole transform into the barque and darkened sun god embarking on the continuing journey.
See
9” x 9”;
ink and gouache on watercolor paper
2017
In this second image, the self is represented by a mummified figure undergoing an unravelling. The self has awakened to find
itself bound by old beliefs, paradigms and ideas that need no longer apply. Some shrouds are removed while others stay. The
mummy’s remaining organ, the heart, is shown as the head to emphasize it’s role as the mind for perception. The vision of how
to act is created according to the perceptions within the heart.
Act
9” x 9”;
ink and gouache on watercolor paper
2017
In this third image, the renewed aspects of self act with magic and speech to defeat the apep-like remains of the old wrappings.
The parts of self are re-enlivened with the black flame around the central wick to enable the arms to perform magic. The mountains and sea are returned to their normal orientation. The
world is re-created and re-united according to the vision perceived. The light of consciousness is reborn at the horizon, having
become more effective.
Of: Away from and Belonging
36” x 60”;
acrylic on canvas
2018
“The unbearable white radiance of primordial light is broken up by the prism of consciousness into a multi-colored rainbow of images and symbols.” —Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness.
When one moves into the darkness, one also is the force that brings light to that darkness. Khepri goes into the space of the Duat — into the unknown darkness towards Runa. The emergence from that space, the once again rising red sun, creates the light and color — one’s own starlight (sunshine) transformed via the rebirth of consciousness.
In this painting, the electric night is juxtaposed with the emergent sunshine. The glyph for night, top blue bar and lightning Djam scepter, represents the transformative force that occurs between the experience in the dark terror of the Duat, and the emergence of the shining light. The Djam scepter is cutting between the two circles
as an acting force of Xeper. The circles are the space of the Duat represented as the pentagram, and the
red sun, Re manifested as individual starlight. The hieroglyph for sunshine, akhu, is a sun emanating rays. The wavy rainbow lines represent these rays emanating from the reborn sun. These are changed perceptions extending beyond
the Self, manifesting visible light into the objective world and
transforming it in accordance with the subjective.
These lines are the wicks lit via the
Djam scepter to glow with brilliant colors. Each colored spot inside the wicks are
intended to represent a ‘mark on the soul’, a Form, that
one has been and experienced. These spaces in between the weaves of wicks are the relics of Xeper left in our own, or others’ memories. The surrounding pure black areas represent the open unmanifest as the Void of Creation. The white circle within the Djam Scepter’s prongs is a portion
of blank canvas remaining — the forming of an entrance for making the light of Re manifest.