Sometimes with adulation comes arrogance.

My journey as an artist is such a short one. Considering I have been painting for only a little over a year and am still amazed at what flows from my brush to the canvas – mystified as to where it comes from – this unlearned ability – this perceived “talent”.  

How wrong I was to ever think that way and how surely this was proved to me the other day.

Before I explain I want you to look at this painting by the late Sir Sidney Nolan.

What do you see?

I took a friend to the NSW Art Gallery a couple of weeks ago. Chris had never been there before and because it is one of my favourite places to go and I have been there dozens of times you can imagine how thrilled I was to be able to share my passion with someone special to me.

We looked at the Archibald, Sulman and Wynne exhibitions as well as the old European Masters and French Impressionists.  I wanted to show off – but it was clear from the outset that although Chris had never actually set foot in the NSW Art Gallery before, his knowledge of art and artists was well versed.  Book learned. It is quite wonderful to watch someone for the first time look at a painting they have only ever seen before in a book. Like visiting a country that you have only ever seen in a brochure.

It was getting late and we had a bit of a walk down to Circular Quay to catch the River Cat ferry back to Parramatta where we had left the car, but before we made tracks, we had one last room to view. It is the room in the gallery where all the Australian Artists are hung. Amongst them the familiar names Tom Roberts, Arthur Boyd, Brett Whitely, Russell Drysdale, William Dobell and of course Sidney Nolan.

I am personally partial to Russell Drysdale’s art and was in a bit of a reverie of enjoyment when out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Chris was staring rather thoughtfully at a large blue painting in the corner of the room. The painting entited “Untitled” was to me at first glance just another landscape  - lovely mountains with sky and clouds. I am quite familiar with the works of Nolan but this painting was unlike any other Sidney Nolan paintings that I had seen.  Not in any of his other usual styles.

It reminded me a little of the Blue Mountains – west of Sydney. But it wasn’t quite right somehow.  The big snow-capped mountain in the middle of the picture seemed sort of ….out of place for the rest of the landscape. I mentioned this to Chris who then with the eyes of someone more enlightened than myself proceeded to tell and show me it wasn’t a mountain – in fact it wasn’t a landscape at all. As Chris described what he saw without the arrogance of an artists ego an entirely new image revealed itself. I could not believe that I had not seen it, for now once revealed I discovered that I could not see anything else.

This is what Chris saw – perhaps it is what you saw too – or perhaps like me you saw at first glance nothing but a landscape. For those who might have seen the landscape I have drawn a blue outline on the painting to help make the image clearer (apologies to Nolan):

So what heavenly creature is this? An angel with arms and wings outstretched? It most definitely is a male making love to a female. With pure energy (Love? Life-force?) radiating from one to the other. Heaven and Earth perhaps? Creation definitely. Keep looking at the first image now and you will see more.

Now with eyes and mind wide open thanks to Chris I could not stop wondering at the genius of the artist to conceive of so spiritual and powerful an image and yet at the same time to hide it in a landscape so that only the enlightened might see.

Until…..

One week later my dear friend and real artist (as opposed to my pretend status)Simon Sawell contacted me to tell me he had just finished his latest painting it was a commissioned piece. A mountain landscape. He wanted me to see it before he showed it to the purchaser and would be dropping by to see me on his way through.

Notwithstanding my respect and adoration for Simon I am always excited to see his new art, but in the context of my Nolan experience I was particularly excited to see  Simon. He knew nothing of the previous weeks sojourn to the Art Gallery and I had not discussed the “Untitled” Nolan with him. Thanks to digital online media however, I had a photograph of “Untitled” ready on my computer to show him when he arrived. I wanted  so much to know what Simon saw in it.

But first here is Simon’s painting.  Look closely with eyes and mind wide open.

What do you see?

The moment I saw Simon’s mountain landscape I squealed with delight.  Yes there was more to it. There were faces in the mountains – People - I saw four of them immediately. In fact like the Nolan I now could see the faces before seeing the landscape. Not holding back my delight, I was positively gushing about it “I can see them – the people, their faces, there there there and there” I said pointing at the painting. Simon however looked somewhat confused.

“What faces, what people?” he asked. So I showed him.

Fascinated, by this lack of recognition on his part I then showed Simon the Nolan – and just like me, before  Chris had opened my eyes, he saw nothing but the mountains and the clouds. So I showed him the real image there too and like me – once revealed Simon could see nothing else.

It was then that the thought occurred to me that Sidney Nolan rather than brilliantly concealing the true nature of “Untitled” perhaps had been completely unaware of what he had painted, just as Simon was unaware of what he had painted, until shown

The really interesting thing was that the man who commissioned the painting from Simon (Robert) is in fact a deeply spiritual person. The original photograph from which Simon had worked was of Mount Shasta in northern California.  Robert according to Simon feels a deep spiritual connection with this place and is a follower of Telos having actually commissioned the painting intentionally as a “devotional artwork”.

Although he himself is not convinced of the “science” behind Robert’s personal beliefs, Simon undertook a certain ritual as requested and with respect for his patron’s wishes. This ritual which included listening to special meditational music, invoking spirit and asking for help with his art as well as kneeling and bowing, took place every time he resumed work on the painting.

To all intents and purposes Simon was simply painting what he saw in the photograph. But as you can see below the actual photograph of Mount Shasta itself reveals very little of the facial detail which is found in the final painting.  In other words the faces weren’t there till Simon unknowingly put them there.

But the story gets more intriguing…..

I was understandably keen to find out whether Robert himself, would see the four people in the mountains and told Simon to let me know. What a surprise was in store for both of us because when Simon showed the painting to Robert not only did he see the four faces I had seen and had revealed to Simon, but many more faces and people besides.

The two of them had turned the painting on its sides and upside down and what seemed like clouds morphed into ghostly visages ascending skyward. There was an old Indian and even animals.  The actual mountain range took on the shape of not just a woman’s face but her entire body. Again I could not believe that I had not seen this the first time. It was as if the painting was taking on a life of its own revealing more and more each time you looked at it.

Both Simon and I simultaneously felt the shiver down our spines and the prickling of hairs on the backs of our necks as we explored the painting further with our eyes. That feeling of Kundalini. Or as my mother would say – “someone just walking over your grave”.

What magic lies in artistic creation? I am not sure, and cannot presume to know, but thanks to Chris my observations of paintings will never be cursory again. I shall always be uplifted and amazed. For who knows whether a painting is all an artist own work or if it is indeed perhaps created with the help of some supernatural force far greater than any mere mortal artists own imagination.

If you would like to know more about the teachings of Telos visit their website:

http://www.telos-australia.com.au/index.php