Sex arouses the body, nature enriches the soul, and art inspires the mind. Artist Mark Henson makes love visible with a paintbrush. It’s not porn and it’s not exactly what you were thinking but it might just inspire you in ways that you have never imagined…
These visions illustrate Darwin’s forgotten wisdom. Nature thrives on cooperation as equally as it does on competition. Waterfalls make love to the rocks they splash upon. The interdependence between all living things brings a deep sense of connection to anyone who ponders the idea. In a society fixated on competition, survival of the fittest, and oppression, these paintings are refreshing on all levels. You can view his most explicit ones at his online gallery.
Henson is 62 years old, grew up in Sacramento and spent his formative years in The San Francisco Bay area. He painted backdrops for theater productions like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and musical acts like Jimi Hendrix. Mark attributes meditation as a source of much of his inspiration. He first learned about it at a talk given in San Francisco by the founder of Integral Yoga, Satchidananda Saraswati.
Sharing the Wealth
His meditation helps him to embrace the spiritual, political, and paradoxical nature of our society in his art. Even Darwin refuted Social Darwinism. Humans are not here merely to compete in a winner takes all society. Marks expresses this social commentary in the painting, Sharing the Wealth below. There are some real downsides to living in a society ruled by this belief alone.
Paintbrush Warrior
Cooperation of species is the missing story to resolving much of our planets problems. Marks’ art tells this story. We are a destructive species yet we are also creative. Making love is a lot more than just naked bodies. Procreation can happen with a paintbrush, a musical instrument, and a dance. The painting below is aptly titled Paintbrush Warrior.
New Pioneers
Each person has a choice about the future we’d like to build on this planet. Yet a masterful painting puts you in the middle of the picture. New Pioneers (below) took almost a year to paint. Paolo Soleri held a vision for integrating urban centers in the natural landscape. You can see this potential future depicted on the right side of the painting. Sadly our society has lucrative incentives for death and destruction. The painting puts these choices right before our eyes.
March of Progress
In the mid 90’s Mark racked up a bunch of library fines taking out books. He was learning how to paint the animals in March of Progress below. If we choose to fight against nature we will all lose that battle. But seeing it on canvas (or in a blog) somehow bypasses the usual mental filters. The word “progress” often looks like the Social Darwinian nightmare. What if “progress” was the ideology of a cooperation of species rather than the conquering of species? I think the word commonly used in that paradigm is “permaculture”.
Perhaps we could all learn something from the paintings and vision of Mark Henson. Maybe a little quiet reflection and meditation somewhere in nature would help us conceptualize how the polarities of our human nature might flow into one stream of connected consciousness.
Whether making love visible with a paintbrush or appreciating great art, we have many reasons to ponder this gift called life. Take some time to reflect on our role within this larger web of existence. Mark Henson has continued to be an inspiration to many other artists in the Visionary Art world. Explore Visionary Art, You’re Painted into the Picture and other articles here on Culture Collective.
Mark’s creative work reminds us that stories rule our world. What we believe to be true is often what we create. How might we re-consider the stories that rule our world and what might the world look like if we did? This question is actually quite sexy…
