ABOUT OLIVERISM
by Olivera Zoric Papathoma
Over the last century we have witnessed the evolvement of religion and technology as both competing and parallel forces in our social and spiritual spheres. This journey can be traced back from the time of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, a medieval work that through the organization of the cosmos through religious motifs, revealed the universal strengths and weaknesses of human nature whilst at the same time celebrating the progressive desires of the human spirit. We can say that this work heralded the beginnings of the new era of humanism, which brought reason and science to question and challenge prevailing divine beliefs. Fast forward then to Nikola Tesla, ground-breaking scientist and father of modern technology. A genius through whose inventions society continues to develop and be shaped and who demonstrated an understanding, perhaps most definitively of all, of the power and potential of technology as an existential force.
Two pioneers using, on the one hand religion, and on the other technology, to move through the stages of self-discovery without which universal connection is unachievable. We have the right to live according to our free will, but we need to discover what and how. This has been the subject of my quest.
Dante enabled me to begin connecting with, and working through, my inner self. Through years of struggle I have lived through hell and attempted to cleanse my thoughts, words and actions, through purgatory. I hope and aim to eventually reach paradise, though I cannot say how long this will take or whether it is within my reach or lifetime. It is however through this journey of personal and spiritual self-awareness and development that I have observed and considered the social structure in which, as a socially conscious being, I seek to exist.
Through this evolution of identity, and years of seeking, I have stumbled in turmoil, both within myself and the social spheres I have inhabited; searching for my true self, and through myself for the truth of what is around me. Searching for the depth of emotional balance, which becomes evident on the surface of everyday existence. Gaining awareness through the messages and influence of both church and technology, through the patterns of icons and pixels alike. I have been conscious at the same time of fundamental aspects of our humanity at risk of loss through fanaticism of religion or technological advancements, and the need to manage human instinct in addressing these hazards.
It is through the lens of these personal experiences that I have attempted in my work to connect what I see as two pioneering masters of insight, Dante and Tesla, and their enduring influence on the world today. My art hopes to pay due homage to the guidance they have shared, and to reflect the progress to which they continue to contribute as well as the dangers of which they warned. I have tried to encapsulate their messages in my paintings, weaving through these a series of unifying motifs such as the universal symbolism of the number 3, whose significance has since ancient times connected religious, spiritual and progressive beliefs and movements.
Dante’s search for his own being through an understanding of God as the Holy Trinity, and Tesla’s devotion to finding the true meaning, in observable science, of the number 3, propelled me to search and research in order to connect, through my work, the power of the inner, the spiritual, and the scientific. Through all I observe, feel and attempt to understand, I have created OLIVERISM. Using art as a mechanism for expression, to convey the power of emotional intelligence that eventually neither religion nor technology can mimic or replace.
OLIVERISM offers an answer to the never ending quest: who, what and where are we? Our souls must be set free… free to roam. True freedom can only be experienced by not attaching to fixed and static things. Just as the Universe is in perpetual motion, so are we. If we let our souls travel then we will not deny them – their heritage, their present, their future, their true self… in this moment in time.
OLIVERISM celebrates the true self in all its colour and purety. A series of images calling for a breaking of the façade through which we hide our inner love, and for the external projection of our true colours, free from shame or pretence.
My palette is full of colors: I like to paint life in colors, it’s how I live. I often see society as a cursed flock without a goal, imprisoned individually in cycles from which it is difficult to escape. Instant existence, instant gratification and instant knowledge; perpetual superficiality….In nature and the universe, however, there is no deception: there lie only order, accuracy and truth.
Painting is the most affordable and accessible art – it is close to each, and even to the most unsophisticated, person. Indeed, there is a degree of naivety to be found in the works of even the greatest artists – and when I say naivety in this sense, I refer to a certain spiritual innocence that some people retain all their lives. Like all humanity, artists are hoping to harness whatever of this innocence there is left to them.
The desire to retain and harness purity has never been so pertinent as in this age of high technology and transition to absolute digitisation. Digital processing has become a central aspect of our everyday life. These observations recall me to the work of Nikola Tesla who famously said “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress within one decade then in all the previous centuries of its existence. If you want to find the secrets of the Universe, think of energy, frequency and vibration”.
In my paintings, I delve into depths that are not visible; I seek out non-physical phenomena. By non-physical phenomena I refer to how thoughts (depicted, in my pictures, through hair), emotions, sensations and memory all act simultaneously to produce reality. Everything in the universe, including humans, is made of matter – everything is made of particles such as atoms, molecules, protons and electrons. In my paintings, these materials are represented as ornaments which intertwine through hair, body and face.
I see OLIVERISM as having the ability to look into space and see into the last billion years. It was in fact when investigating the origins of the universe that humans conceived geology, paleontology and oceanography. In this way my pictures show the pictures of nature itself – water, rocks, terrain. I appeal to nature and purity in order to better understand humanity and all forms of life. When I ask where this desire for discovery comes from, the answer for me is energy. Therefore I conceive of energy as the language of the Universe and of its frequency as the data that drives the evolution of the Universe.
Nikola Tesla: “If I vibrate at a certain frequency, I will get everything I want, and my life will be solved”.
Matthew 7:7 New Testament: “Ask and it will be given to you; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened to you.”
OLIVERISM connects all of the above.
