After nearly a year of hibernation, I’m proud to say The Melon’s The Sweet Spot Gallery has returned.  Since re-starting the project on a new webspace, I’ve already interviewed and put up galleries for two fantastic and totally unique artists, including The CLAW’s Mark Brill.

Furthermore, I’m incredibly excited to note that as an extension of the online space, The Sweet Spot is partnering with a new Seattle event called whizARTbang. Artists featured on The Sweet Spot each month will also be featuring in whizARTbang’s monthly show. The documentaries produced for the web are shown at the event, and there’s even a physical gallery space.  This is a huge achievement for us, as it really allows our artists to come full-circle by being featured online and in front of a live audience.

Sadly, this means that The Sweet Spot will no longer be hosted on The Melon. While the old links will linger, I’ve already copied it all over and there will no longer be any Sweet Spot updates here. I will certainly highlight updates (especially when The Melon hasn’t been posting any material), but all new content will be on its new page. Below you’ll find the latest two artist videos. Head over to TheSweetSpotGallery.com to learn more about them.

Artist’s Statement:

I am fascinated by the encounter of consciousness embodied–that is to say, the existential platform of self encountering otherness. I am also enchanted by the exploration of “reality” as an embodied relationship between finitude and the transcendental.

My visual art depicts monsters and suffering as a metaphor for the state of despair and suffering that Self encounters as Separated Consciousness (e.g. arising into a body/Separation from Source). Thus, my art also seeks to explore the embodied point of contact between that state of despair/separation and the state of reconciliation: Enlightenment, the Kingdom of God, Relationship to Unconditional Love.

I feel called to producing visual images because they seem to convey deep and subtle relationships–e.g. between objects that are involved in suffering and freedom or relief from that suffering. My spiritual “work” usually evolves into the imagery I am drawing, and I will find myself in agreement with a principle that appears in the work: of reconciliation or aspects of despair, separation, or transcendent love. Teachers and traditions that have been fundamental to the development of my thought and art are Buddhist Foundations: Chogyam Trungpa, Shunryu Suzuki, Christian Foundations: Soren Keirkegaard, Thomas Merton, Other: Hafiz and other Sufi voices, Martin Buber, Early Indian theology, and my Friends!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jocelynskillman/

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