Halo
by Despina Konstantinides
Oil on canvas
10 x 20 inches
2008-2010
Halo is part of a series of 17 small paintings that Konstantinides had titled psalms
The title for this group of paintings was inspired by a book of poems by Hugh Ogden, the artist's poetry professor, entitled, Turtle Island Tree Psalms. Through words, he paints a picture of the individual self and the physical world weaving in and out of each other. Above any description his poems evoke the specific feeling of losing sense of where the individual ends and nature begins.
Konstantinides work here reveals her draw towards the crossing of thresholds, in his poems and in the likes of thinkers including John Dewey, David Bohm, and Martin Heidegger.
As the artist herself notes "forms echo within the inner self past words and concrete thoughts. There is a fragmentary glimpse of access to something elusive and thrilling that dwells at the threshold. The language of form pursued while painting, is just one of the many access points to unveiling the pulsing sensation that lies at the threshold, flickering on and off, inspiring me forward."