Shaun Gamache

About Artist:

Born and raised in Calgary. I went to art college at The Alberta College Of Art And Design in the late 90's. I had a psychotic break in 2004 and have been trying to make sense of my world ever since. I have learned that to change the world I change myself. In my art I paint automatic paintings that are self portraits, exploring my journey. Exploring the paradoxes of the Real.

Much of my work looks Abstract Expressionist or Action painting with the larger scale works. I work fast. However when they are done I am always looking for the image. In fact there are alway multiple images. More than one painting in one. At one time I would rotate the painting and another fully complete objective painting would emerge. Some can see these, others can not. If you can see a teddy bear in the clouds you can see images in my art.

I see threw eyes much of the world does not. My work explores myself, and I share that with the world. It might be egotistical, or it is an exploration of the macrocosm by looking at the microcosm. I must paint and create. It shows me where I am going.

About Artwork:

I venture into the unknowns of the mind. I am looking for the parts of myself that I have not yet seen. So much of me is mimicked by what I have seen in this world. Simply repeating the patterns that I have seen since being born. Then there are the patterns that come form other life times that get played out here as being part of my character in this place. We are here after all to develop our characters. My art transcends time and space within a mental realm to manifest itself here in third dimensional form on a canvas, piece of paper, or what ever form can be shared in this third dimensional place.
I have traveled into sanity and insanity in this lifetime. I have been doing to work to become the master. Eventually I will transcend, when the time comes. In this life or another. My work shows me where I am. It is a mirror of my process both as myself and as others. It is like being in a dream and seeing someone else as you and being able to control what they do. To control the dream here is to be able to experience this world on all levels that exist here. From the Manhattan Project where people demanifested and then remanifested into the metal of a ship, loosing their lives, to time travelers, to other dream worlds that exist on this planet that people can experience. All are in the realms of the mystic. The mystic swims in same waters that the schizophrenic drowns. Rosicrucian Manuscript.
I live my life as the mystic and my work explores this. From a primal place of where someone comes from when they are sick, to a man of power. And then back to a man of peace and love. My faces explore who I am on a daily basis. Some are of this world, others are not. Yet all of them come here through me to be expressed. I am the vessel. My hand moves in no mind. No thinking. Simply to be in a state of being. I explore the mind but I also explore the heart. I see my emotions in each face. I see the pain that plagues me as well as the bliss of the divine love of God. How much can we experience as a human being in this human condition.
I am here to observe and take nothing personally. Be non-attached to the human condition. This is part of my practice and my art. To be fully present here and in spirit. Where really is the here. That is subjective. To be here and now is what I draw. I paint often creating the title before I start so that the energetic of what I create can birth itself out of the void.
In my faces they are reflections of who I am in my masculine and feminine identities. If I can say, Am the then everything in it has something to do with me. I am a creator or co-creator with everything else in it. There is Universe also thee world, then there is my world. My world consists of everything I am aware of in my circle of influence. All other objective things can be part of thee world, but dont have anything to do with me on a subjective level because I am not the one experiencing it. Therefore everything that happens to me is subjective as it comes through my filters and is interpreted by me. As everything I experience does this how could anything be anything other than subjective that I am experiencing.
My paintings come from other places yet are still channelled through me to become physical on a piece of paper or in a painting. I am bringing fifth dimension, the dream time, into third dimension, the artwork. This is the work of the automatiste. To do without doing. To step into no mind. Simply be. This is why my faces become a reflection of myself as I am interpreting my dream on a piece of paper or canvas.
In my abstract work I see images in the work. It starts as an abstract expressinist piece, then as I view the painting, it becomes for me an objective image. Usually I can see multiple images in one canvas, even as I turn the paintings. Some only see color field, and that is fine. Once the piece has left me and is given to the public it is up to them to find their own subjective reality with my work.

I hear a lot about formlessness. At first I could try to associate it with chaos, yet even that has a form and a pattern to it in the big picture. For me it is a feeling, yet cannot be put into thought that makes sense. Even in the disorientation of feeling like my body is no longer physical with waves of something passing threw me, can this even be formlessness as I can sort of put it into words or try to rationalize it.Part of me goes, how could one step into formlessness yet still function here and where would be the purpose. Or is it a state of experience one experiences for a moment, then it is gone, and we return to the human condition with a new perspective. Is it the state of expansion where there is no separation, no security, only expansion. It felt as if the universe existed within me. Yet even this I try to rationalize. Try to understand it. I put myself into a protective bubble so that I can feel that I at least have some kind of boundary to myself as this is known.

To let go of the rational mind, does this mean one must loose touch with this world and everyone in it, only to find another. Yet here we get locked up. There must be some functionality, yet the mind must be able to let go. Is it the edge, a high wire, a free fall, or floating in a void vacuum, or none of the above and outside explanation. I feel like I am just playing with myself trying to find a rational explanation for something that is not rational. Yet my intent is giving away the addiction of the illusion I have been programmed with, I suppose to change my point of reference.

To function without a belief system, only to use what is most appropriate for the moment. I think to myself is it possible to be this fluid. I am constantly going to newer depths of where I am attached. Of where I am not willing to let go of what I think is. Then create the fight, the war against what is to hold onto what is known. Sometimes it is like I am fighting for my very life, for my very sanity. And all it is, is fear. That simple, yet I purposefully try to slit my own throat with it.

Even now, I am creating all this drama around "trying" to understand, yet isn't my understanding I have to let go of with clarity being an enemy here. All I have to do is not take it so personally, yet in the depth of my core that feels like betraying the very fabric of who I think I am. It feels like I am killing myself and nurturing myself at the same time. To have self care in the death, held safe in the hands of God. Even in the knowing of the ruthlessness of nature, yet at the same time, love beyond measure.