The Quickening / Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness?
Title: "The Quickening / Will your wonders be made known in darkness?" (2021)
Size: 48"x48"
Acrylic ink dyed kozo collage and mica powder on canvas
From "O Mirabile Mysterium," my body of work illuminating Genesis 1. This work explores the pre-creation state when God's breath-spirit hovered over the primordial chaos waters.
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When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was [wild] and waste and darkness over the deep and God’s breath hovering over the waters… -Genesis 1:2 (trans. Robert Alter)
Will You perform wonders for the dead?
Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah.
Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave,
Your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness?
And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
-Psalm 88:10-12
Quickening | noun
the first motion of a fetus in the uterus felt by the mother
Oh Spirit of God, what must it have been like for you before the beginning? I wonder at such a mystery. What must have raced through your mind before time and space existed, in that inconceivable, boundless darkness, when you had your first quickening? Your Word offers the image of your breath-spirit hovering over that first watery wilderness, a whisper of wings. There was no life then but yours, nothing to mirror your glory in the absence of light.
Woman and womb would come much later. Surely the first mother was startled by the contradictory feelings of alien and familiar flesh all aflutter in her womb. She had no mother to tell her what to expect. The first human quickening was a secret wonder, a soul in a soul.
Was creation alien to you in the first flutter before the beginning? Or did it feel like home? Did you love it then, or did it take time? You were the first mother bird, poised to bring life into an inhospitable world. Brooding, you fluttered over the deep and made your voice ready. Yours was the first word. In that quickening, you conceived space-time and eternity, complex systems and souls, the finite and the infinite.
You need no blank, clean slate to make me new. You need nothing but the surrender of my unformed chaos. Nothingness, then, is only the absence of your order, your purpose, your naming. I need only be an offering, exactly as I am, a slurry of clay and untamed waves, an unfathomable deep, an empty womb. I need only bring my wild and waste into your presence. Will you make your wonders known in this darkness?
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All artwork is signed on the back. Can be signed on the front at collector's request.
Keep in mind that paintings can look slightly different in person. I paint using a lot of texture, so they are even better when you can see them in person - it is hard to capture here!
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COPYRIGHT
Artwork is protected by copyright. All images displayed are property of Kelly Kruse. The sale of original artwork does not include the sale of copyright, including rights to reproduce or license imagery. All rights reserved.
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SHIPPING & HANDLING
Shipping for this listing is for contiguous US States and will be fulfilled via USPS or FedEx ground within the US.
I will gladly reduce prices for combined shipping! Please contact me and let me know which paintings you want shipped together and I can give you a quote and then adjust the shipping amount on the painting listings.
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