Mundane Conditioning (2020) Painting by Charles Riley

This painting was made and remade over many years. A rough ground was built up with acrylic, giving it the uncontrived look of a natural surface. It is easy for us to forget we live in a natural world that is ultimately out of our control, as we can only know a small part in each brief moment we experience in the unknowable expanse of space and time ing through our consciousness. In a way, this artwork was another exercise in letting go of the mundane conditioning that can obscure the unconditioned creativity of the universe.

Sometimes, it takes something like a pandemic to remind us of what little control we really have. This realization of a lack of control can be quite unsettling for people accustomed to comfort from cradle to hospice eased death and even a comfy coffin to settle into the afterlife.
The suggestion of a figure in a pose similar to a crucifixion is built with thick layers of grey green acrylic mixed with marble dust and gravel. Twine is embedded like a tangled web. Flesh-like pieces are enmeshed in the twine and there are brown decay denoted spots. A large brown snake of acrylic encases the skull.

There is a broken black line beneath the outstretched arms. This seemed appropriate not only as a device to bring attention to the outstretched arms and sense of drama, but to suggest the Eastern cultural symbol of the broken line of an I Ching trigram, the appropriate symbol I had in mind was the trigram for consciousness as well as fire. The broken line is in the center of two solid lines. In this position, the broken line is meant to suggest mundane conditioning which causes imbalance in the consciousness and an impediment to realization of the unconditioned creativity of the universe. When the broken line is replaced by a solid line, the trigram of three solid lines denotes the creative or balance in the consciousness. The creative trigram also denotes an open awareness of uncontrived fluid response to reality.

It’s 1937 all over again, China, a totalitarian regime, is threatening its neighbors with the same fate as Tibet. Further abroad by financial blackmail and well planted propaganda keeps corporations in line and apologetic governments. The first thing a totalitarian regime does is destroy the culture, as witnessed in Tibet and earlier in China itself. Skillful manipulation of the truth is wielded as in the cover up of numerous human rights violations such as: recent pandemic origins; the reeducation camps (better referred to as brainwashing and slave labor camps) for Muslims, other religious minorities and people with opinions of their own; the harvesting of organs from political prisoners; and on and on as the world goes blithely about its business.

History is rewritten to suit a narrative of a benevolent Big Brother, if I might borrow from George Orwell’s prophetic book, 1984. Mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of all persons and behaviors are the tools employed to suit the needs of the Party elite. The strings of the Party are strings that left unchallenged destroy the soul of mankind.

Related themes

Mortality