Marti McGinnis
Project Equipoise
Artist Statement
Project Equipoise is an ongoing digital painting and drawing exercise that focuses on the interplay between current events and larger aspects of this existence using the energy of equines as a grounding force. Horses live in the now. They occupy their present fully. They are effortless meditators. When one opens up to this energy, the chaotic nature of thoughts under the influence of the seemingly relentless pandemonium of a hyped up news cycle begin to morph into something quieter. I learned to tune in to this calm and studied how to let go and just be in the presence of these master practitioners of living in the moment.
Project Equipoise
Equipoise:
/ˈekwəˌpoiz/
n. balance of forces or interests. A state of equilibrium.
This series uses an updated approach of the charmed surrealism of artists like Marc Chagall and Lenora Carrington of the last century. It is a buoyant approach to the serious considerations of the topics referenced: politics, discord, disease juxtaposed with hope, optimism and idealism. These images are meant to convey how the chaos of contemporary information overload can be softened and reimagined into considerations that are encouraging and far more hopeful.
Horses can be very subtle. Tapping in to their powerful quiet gives one access into another way to process circumstances around us. Being able to reconfigure how news hits my heart during the stressful times of recent political and cultural strife, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the fallout from these events has helped keep me sane and even hopeful. I let the busyness of my thoughts under the influence of current events get replaced by something much less noisy and far bigger as the horses and I consider the sky; our eyes soft and our hearts tranquil in each other’s company. This creates an existential reboot in my core. Equanimity replaces anxiety. Equipoise is achieved.
Each is a visual meditation done after spending time simply hanging out with the horses I live with. I go out into their corral or pasture and sit and take in the environment they are surrounded by. I listen as they rhythmically munch hay, whisk a fly away with a long dry tail or blow dust out their nose with a thunderous snort. If I’m lucky, and I often am, the golden one will sidle up to me and heave an enormous sigh big enough for us both to relax into.
Project Equipoise is an ongoing digital painting and drawing exercise that focuses on the interplay between current events and larger aspects of this existence using the energy of equines as a grounding force. Horses live in the now. They occupy their present fully. They are effortless meditators. When one opens up to this energy, the chaotic nature of thoughts under the influence of the seemingly relentless pandemonium of a hyped up news cycle begin to morph into something quieter. I learned to tune in to this calm and studied how to let go and just be in the presence of these master practitioners of living in the moment.
Project Equipoise
Equipoise:
/ˈekwəˌpoiz/
n. balance of forces or interests. A state of equilibrium.
This series uses an updated approach of the charmed surrealism of artists like Marc Chagall and Lenora Carrington of the last century. It is a buoyant approach to the serious considerations of the topics referenced: politics, discord, disease juxtaposed with hope, optimism and idealism. These images are meant to convey how the chaos of contemporary information overload can be softened and reimagined into considerations that are encouraging and far more hopeful.
Horses can be very subtle. Tapping in to their powerful quiet gives one access into another way to process circumstances around us. Being able to reconfigure how news hits my heart during the stressful times of recent political and cultural strife, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the fallout from these events has helped keep me sane and even hopeful. I let the busyness of my thoughts under the influence of current events get replaced by something much less noisy and far bigger as the horses and I consider the sky; our eyes soft and our hearts tranquil in each other’s company. This creates an existential reboot in my core. Equanimity replaces anxiety. Equipoise is achieved.
Each is a visual meditation done after spending time simply hanging out with the horses I live with. I go out into their corral or pasture and sit and take in the environment they are surrounded by. I listen as they rhythmically munch hay, whisk a fly away with a long dry tail or blow dust out their nose with a thunderous snort. If I’m lucky, and I often am, the golden one will sidle up to me and heave an enormous sigh big enough for us both to relax into.
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Marti McGinnis
Independent Artist Marti McGinnis is an American artist and horsewoman who now lives in Mexico’s central highlands. She works with a wide variety of media to amplify the mystical, where science and spirit commingle. She combines a passion for amplifying the subtle messages from elements of the natural world with a life long pursuit of creating joyful art. Her interpretations cross realms, the seen and the unseen, with a goal to illuminate the one-ness of existence and its diverse ways to self express. |
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