Night & Day Give Birth to Each Other

“Night & Day Give Birth to Each Other” © D. Yael Bernhard

This is one of my oldest paintings for which I still have an image – scanned into my first computer back in the 1990s, and watermarked as shown. Back then, I was shooting 35mm slides of my art and sending the film out to be developed. Much of my work prior to that is lost.

I remember being fascinated with duality at the time. I was studying Eastern religion and Jungian psychology, and the opposing archetypes of yin and yang, dark and light, receptive and creative, anima and animus, night and day. I wanted to express this basic concept with figures, reducing them to purely symbolic forms that were still recognizable as human. I was also deeply immersed in African art, music, and dance, and wanted to bring these influences into my work. Black, white, and the color of raw clay were my chosen colors. The more primal, the better.

Out of the earthy loam of my imagination, this primitive painting emerged. I painted on rice paper in gouache paint, and added texture with colored pencils on top – a technique I used for a number of years. I began with a perfect square divided in half diagonally, as if dividing a cell in two. The two halves of this cell are figures as well as geometric forms. Are they mirroring each other, joined in partnership, or pulling away from each other? Opposite in form but not in color, they form a duet within a trio of dark, medium, and light hues – three within two, like the tension of odd and even rhythms in the traditional African drumming I was learning at the time. The colors are also used to created contrast between the backgrounds and figures. The few details – sperm-like snakes and crescent moons – introduce two more elements of male and female. I think by that point, my brain was on overload. Driven by the conviction that what manifests in art can translate into life, my pondering of “visual physics” and quest for symbolic harmony were tireless.

Sigh. Looking back, I see a young artist full of idealistic notions, brimming with my own fertility and hope of becoming a mother someday. If my present self could have spoken to that youthful painter, I would have urged her to work larger, to simplify forms with larger fields of color, not create ever more elaborate ideas. I don't know if I would have been able to do it, given my lifestyle. Fine art doesn’t pay the bills, and when you only have a kitchen table to work on, it's hard to work large. Canvases are expensive, and take up a lot of storage space. I still contend with these limitations today. 

And opposites continue to give birth to each other: Emptiness gives birth to fullness, and hope arises from despair. Loneliness compels toward connection, and connection kindles the desire for solitude. The teachings of Jung and concepts of the Tao continue to illuminate and enrich my art. Around and around, back and forth, on and on it goes. In a way, by creating this painting I was just trying to take a crude snapshot of the dual nature of life. The forces of polarity and harmony never cease.

A good week to all!

D Yael Bernhard

http://dyaelbernhard.com

children's books • fine art • illustration
posters • cards • calendars