[PAINTING] Shawn Thornton

shawn_thornton_cartographers_pineal_eye_art_painting (2)

Shawn Thornton developed during pineal gland cancer during his time in art school. While he wasn't aware of the development of his health, his art suddenly filled with psychedelic concepts, resembling to some extent those of psychedelic art painters. Shawn Thornton's art became representations of his mental struggle.

In an interview with The Blog Art, Shawn Thornton explains about struggling with pineal cancer and his need to put into the physic plane the powerful imagery he would experience "to the point of blacking out ... and much of the symbology in my paintings came out of that struggle and the ordeal I had in dealing with the physical plane that became perversely abstracted to my mind for years".

"When you have something degenerative ailing you every moment, especially when it is drastically misdiagnosed, you are left on a intimate quest to personally obsess over many things, like how am I going to illustrate my struggle when words prove to be hollow and misleading. In this I will note that I started painting on the self portrait with my finger emulating a gun as to commit physic [sic.] suicide four years ago. My eternal bearings had gotten so shocked that I began illuminating these inner planes because I had become unable to navigate the physical world. Quite literally I felt as if my internal maps were becoming contorted and convoluted, deteriorating like the anatomy of a Borges story about labyrinths. …The pineal gland in birds is close to the surface of the back of the skull and is known to serve as their internal navigation system. I am thinking what damage has been done to my eternal maps and did this play a role in my confusion in navigating what had once been so innate all of my life prior." Shawn Thornton