Print: Snailspace

About the original painting:

Acrylic on Framed Canvas

14 x 18 inches

About the concept:

Snailspace: The Journey Between Body, Mind, and Soul (aka Refuach, Neshama, v’Nefesh) is a symbolic map of the innerworkings of the different aspects of a living person. Capturing a moment in a dynamic system, we find that the current is at snail’s pace.

Nefesh, ruach, and neshama--the mind, body, and soul are given to us all, and yet it is puzzling to understand us. To analyze our existence and understand the core of our being can mean deconstructing ourselves and putting ourselves back together, and seeing everything in a new way.

In this depiction of nefesh, ruach and neshamah, I use a greenhouse as a symbol of the spiritual human being. The mind, body, and soul are all linked together with tendrils as a snail traverses the path, at a "snail's pace" as sometimes the mind may take time to understand what the soul wants, or the body may feel what the mind chooses to ignore. The mind is represented by a vibrant azalea bush which has been sculpted by a gardener into the shape of a brain (a "flowery mind").

The body is represented by a giant heart which is shown in cross-section and has fused into an earthy hybrid with gems buried within. Finally, the soul is represented here by the cerebellum, which has been overgrown by a thick, blue-green grass. It is bolstered by a thorny, magenta vine which also protects it. I chose the cerebellum because it is part of the vital brainstem system which is the most fundamental component of our anatomy.

In the very back of the painting is a webbing of veins and arteries which serve as visual structure for the space and in the universe of this painting, the flow of life-giving blood. The greenhouse is half-flooded, just as the body is but also because water is a strong symbol of life in Judaism.