I remember as a child, I had to attend Sunday masses. I didn’t like them; it was for me a kind of torment, literally and metaphorically.  Probably I was very afraid to be confronted again and again, by the fearful personifications of God presented by the clerics. I was terrified to be punished for all the sins that I hadn’t committed yet, but would in the future. There was no escape from that. Even the angels had a kind of apocalyptic dimension. When lying in bed, I often thought about my “personal” Angel. I had no doubt about the fact that somewhere an Angel was watching me. I had one big problem. I wasn’t sure if it was a good Angel or a bad one. Maybe it was a hellish one and not a holy one.  I had a picture of an angel hanging above my bed. He was beautiful, with blue eyes and white hair and a very, very distressing smile. And so it was that my Angel was gazing at me, as if he knew that one day I would betray him and leave him. When at the age of 12 I had rebelled and had declared  that “I don’t want to believe and I categorically deny any belief in such a cruel, evil, bad god  and I do not want to be frightened any more of hell, devils and original sin” I had terrible dreams for the first months afterwards. In my dreams I was somewhere close to the church. It was a big Gothic church, and it was always night. I was attacked by devils, they tore me, hurt me; wild winds had jerked me into the square in front of the church, darkness and a terrible fear occupied my dreams.  That was a horrible experience,  a nightmare, but even more it cemented my decision that God, who is haunting me,  punishing me, and scaring me, will not be my god.
And so it happened, that I became somehow atheist, somewhat Buddhist, a follower of my personal faith; all together my religion is a kind of eclecticism.

Since that time I have been trying to avoid that hell on earth, in my daily life, in my relationships with others, but also in my thoughts and feelings. Hell and Heaven, we create them for ourselves, here on this planet, in our lives, our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, hatreds, and in relationships.
Hell and Heaven are also created for us by nature, life, and the condition of being homo sapiens, something that is unavoidable; we can only accept it.

After this very long introduction it is time for introducing my new painting.

This is an installation composed of four panels, titled “Heaven Is In My Mind”. It belongs to the “My Brain” series.
There is a lot of blue, gold, purple, dark plum, grains of all sorts, and recycled stuff.
It is large: 80 cm x 80 cm.

My brain, my chaotic brain inspired me to make these, I think really good, paintings. The series is called "My Brain" of course.

They are 7 paintings all together (until today at least). I am very proud to present them here. I have divided them into two posts. (My Brain part I and My Brain part II).

Six of them are highly abstract; only one of them is highly illustrative, although with some accents of weirdness. To make the collages I have used lots of stuff. The basis for te six abstract paintings are juices from beetroot, blueberry and a few mixed-leaves and beyond that in some of the paintings there are also acrylics.

In the painting ‘My Brain the Day After’ you can even find a piece of a real beetroot. In the painting “I Am Just OK”   I only used beetroot juice (first cooked together with some vinegar).

The portrait of “Jim emptying his glass of wine and then making the world bleed” is painted with oil paints and finished with beetroot juice and nuggets of coco flakes.

When I am thinking about nice things - 51cm x 60cm

My brain when I see you sufering - 60cm x 51cm

I am just OK