Paul Flippen | Elementals

Elementals

I am interested in the brilliantly wrong – notions we concoct to explain the world, and our place in it, that are simultaneously clarifying, exacting, thorough, and completely false. Aristotle identified the four elements of the universe as Earth, Air, Fire, and Water– a conception so compelling that alchemists explored the properties and combinations of those elements attempting to reveal mystic truths (and make some cold, hard gold). We now have a periodic table that disproves their mistaken beliefs. Isaac Newton vividly explored the visible spectrum, forcing indigo into the color wheel to reach the spiritually satisfying number of seven hues. Our color theory - grouping three primaries with three secondaries - achieves a more accurate six. We wouldn’t have gotten there without Newton. Standing on the shoulders of giants, indeed. There is something poetic and tragic about the energy we expend in pursuit of a relationship to the world that is both rigorous and incorrect - attempting to understand the unknowable and change the insurmountable. These paintings, prints, and drawings represent my own failure to understand the universe. Or to heal it. And yet, we must hope, and try, and hope again - there is beauty in the attempt.

- Paul Flippen