TOBI ZAUSNER, PhD, LCSW
Although I have no work specifically about the coronavirus, I am submitting this painting because it symbolizes hope and perseverance during a time of hardship. People have looked at this work and found solace in it because the man in the painting represents all of us. Like him, we too can persevere. If our buttons are gone or useless, we can hold our coats closed. If we have no gloves, we warm one hand with another. The important thing is to keep going – it doesn’t snow forever. The image in Travelogues was inspired by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which says that in certain instances time can curve and even form a loop. At the intersection of the loop, it is theoretically possible to meet yourself at another point in time. The German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe appears to have had this experience. In his autobiography Goethe wrote that while traveling to Drusenheim he saw himself in his mind’s eye coming toward him down the road but wearing clothes he didn’t recognize. Eight years later Goethe was at the exact same point on the road but this time, he was coming from Drusenheim and realized that he was wearing the clothes he had previously seen but had not recognized years ago. The theoretical physicist Hsiung Tze, PhD, says the figure in this work looks like the mathematician Kurt Gödel meeting himself in time. He notes that Gödel created a closed time-like loop solution to Einstein's theory of general relativity and wore the same kind of hat.
Travelogues
(Oil on Canvas, 56” x 48”; Also an Archival Print)
My visual art is about possibilities depicted as actualities to inspire dreams in the viewer. Navigating deep spaces of mind, the psychological / metaphysical subject matter is intended to become catalytic to contemplation. Images balance between the known and the unknown. Careful rendering in the art suggests reality while its visual content aims to enlarge the possibilities of consciousness. The works are dreams made real, so that “what if” may appear “as is.”