Dimensions of Being Series
Carolyn Sharon Goodridge, born on October 21, 1960, in Port of Spain, Trinidad, West Indies, immigrated to the U.S. in 1963. During the next 10 years, Carolyn was introduced to a spiritual way of life through Beryl Odell, her grandmother, a Pentecostal pastor in Brooklyn, New York. Much importance was given to the power of healing through spiritual focus. At the age of 10, Carolyn began writing short stories, plays and poems, progressing to musical composition for the piano and guitar. By 15 she began her visual arts journey.
After the death of her grandmother in 1976, Carolyn’s religious direction shifted away from Western theologies. She developed skill in Yoga under the guidance of her teacher Ma Prem at the Carnegie Hall Yoga Studio; became widely read in the Eastern religious philosophies of India, and landed in the Korean Zen Buddhist tradition. At age 19, she left home to study Zen at the Chogye International Zen Center in Chelsea Manhattan. There she studied under Zen Master Seung Sahn Sunim, founder of the Korean Zen temple, Kwan Um School of Zen. Zen Master Seung Sahn Sunim taught the artist about “Zen mind.” Her artwork is inspired by these teachings. Carolyn’s formal art education began in 1986 at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York as a night student in textile design. At FIT she discovered her inexhaustible love of painting. In 1984-5 Goodridge took a four-month journey through Germany, Sri Lanka and India. In 1990 she left New York to pursue full time matriculation at the University of Florida in Gainesville with her two-year old twin daughters. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Florida in 1993, and a Master in Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1997. The artist is inspired by the mystical works of color field artists Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Tobey, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still, the whimsical master colorist Hans Hofmann, the musically oriented, German Expressionist Vassily Kandinsky, |
the exploratory work on dreams and the collective unconscious by Paul Kleé, genius musicians John Cage and Ravi Shankar and the Japanese aesthetic of wabi sabi.
The progression of the three abstract paintings series, Zen of Zero Point, Age of Enlightenment Om, Cosmology of Now and Dimensions of Being are inspired by a fusion of ideas and theories: Masaru Emoto's water messages; Edward Maryon's Marcotone Sound Color Theory, and Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory. Some paintings are visualizations of particle physics meeting string theory, attempting to realize the nature of matter and personal reality. Titles such as Morphogenesis of the Blue Wave Particle, Duality’s Resonance and Strings and Parallels, combine theories of biologist, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake's “Morphic Resonance” and author Dr. Masaru Emoto's “Messages From Water” with Edward Maryon's “Marcotone, Science of Tone-Color" and theoretical physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku's “String Theory.” According to Dr. Kaku, our world is made up of vibrating strings. He says, “The Mind of God is music resonating in eleven dimensions throughout hyperspace!” Marcotone says all colors have corresponding tones. Carolyn, through synesthesia, hears and feels the resonance of color as sound, subtle vibration. She chooses the ancient medium, pigmented beeswax (encaustic) to create art. Artist Statement For me, all theories point to musical resonance. The paintings are associated with an inner vision of our larger home, the vast cosmos. The ideas that inform my work are Eastern philosophy and Western science: Zen, Taoism, Yoga, Sufism, Theoretical Physics, and dreams. I have frequent dreams of the cosmos, exploring my place in this multiverse. My intention is to inspire fellow seekers interested in the spiritual side of science. Scientific language is now catching up with and giving credence to the teachings of the ancient spiritual masters and rishis. Perhaps meaningful, even enlightening dialogue and self-reflection among scientists, clergy, Zen and yoga students can be engaged. May all who struggle to attain enlightenment in the world beyond quantum particle physics actualize your true selves! - C.S. Goodridge |