Aaron Aryadharma Matheson

I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it left

6 October - 5 November, 2022

I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it left

What will be my legacy? Flowers in summertime, the cuckoo in spring, the red maple in autumn. – Ryokan

In the Summer holidays I spotted a sign with the title of this show displayed on a caravan: ‘I started out with nothing and I still have most of it left’. At first it seemed humorously self-deprecating - rejoicing in having little and aspiring to less, with a sort of joyful abandon.
However, there is a deeper question in this statement: in what way do I have the things and experiences that comprise my life?
Painting Cornwall, my home for part of my life, has caused me to reflect that this place is not an externally existing thing but an image I am grateful to carry within me - of vast spaces and sea, monumental cliffs and skies.
A true home, rather than being possessed and static, allows for change: the windows let the world and the air in. It gives just enough rest, and just enough ingress. And I feel that is what a good painting does. 
In the paintings Poem of the Shore (Duckpool) and Kurukulle, the opposing forces of boundary and freedom, power and fragility, iconic image and incidental mark, find a kind of unstable equilibrium. As a result, the paintings’ tenuousness and dream-like qualities are magnified.
I realise when I’m painting I am seeking somewhere to reside, somewhere to find meaning and belonging. However, painting itself is not a safe home. For me, the world which is my larger home, trembles in the same way with uncertainty and with potentiality. 
The ocean connects the two places in this exhibition, Cornwall and Clovelly. Immersing ourselves in the sea reminds us of our smallness, non-difference, impermanence, and how we cannot hold onto anything for long. 
Tidally connected with the sea, the sun and moon shine above. Traditionally in Buddhist icons the sun and moon displayed together are used to symbolise that something of significance is occurring in a realm beyond time. That is the function of the sun and the nocturnal mass of stars in this exhibition.

– Aaron Aryadharma Matheson, 2022

 ‘Look into this awareness of yours… Look and see: It has no form or shape. It has no colour.
There is no centre; there is no edge.
To begin with, it doesn’t come from anywhere.
In the meantime, it doesn’t stay anywhere…
In the end, it doesn’t go anywhere…
…it does not exist in any way at all,
Yet there is a clarity, a knowing…’

– Padmasambhava