MICHAEL WHELAN

THE DREAMING LANDS (2002) by Michael Whelan

Oil on Canvas - 20" X 30"

This painting is one of several works derived from my experiences at MSKCC in 2000.

That year I also read a couple of books which mentioned a feeling I have experienced at night during camping trips: lying in some huge quiet wilderness area, and imagining the overwhelming weight of the Earth at my back, as if I was actually lying in space and pressing against my back was the huge sphere of the earth with all its wonder, order, chaos and complexity. At the same time I also had a sense of being a part of it all, of sinking into and being one with the foundation of stone and rock which supports us all, the whole planet and everything on it.

This feeling came to me again while I was recovering in the hospital, with the sense that all the buildings and man-made constructs were transparent as mist, that the “bones of the land” (the rock and stone under everything) were the only things that were real and solid and supporting me.

(via theartofmichaelwhelan)