Long time Tool collaborator Chet Zar has a new project in the works – a solo art show of new paintings called Ego Death. He is hoping to fund this show using popular crowd-sourcing site Kickstarter.
From his own description:
In the wee morning hours on the first day of 2013 I got an idea for the title of my next solo show of original paintings: EGO DEATH. Ego Death is a term for a mystical experience where the ego temporarily loses its grip over our consciousness. It is that moment when the veil is lifted, you leave all of your internal baggage behind and have that crystal clear vision of the way things REALLY are.
The EGO DEATH title came with another great idea: What if I presented the show like a funeral? You know, decorate the gallery like a traditional Gothic funeral―with Lillies, wreaths, a hearse and even a coffin―a funeral for our collective ego..
The concept really got my mind going! Not only was this a visually exciting idea, it also said something that I have been wanting to say with my artwork for years: perhaps it is finally time to lay the ego to rest. Maybe the same ego that was instrumental in bringing us to this stage in human evolution has outlived its usefulness, and has become the problem. What better way to symbolically lay the ego to rest than a mock funeral?
I have long been toying with the idea that my paintings are, and have always been, representations of our collective ego. Maybe this is why I have not only been painting monsters but I have been painting monsters with pathos.The paintings are portraits of ourselves, the parts of us that we are often afraid to look at. The parts of us that are vulnerable and wounded. They are the parts of us that are in pain.
Snazzy pic below. Chet is asking for $55k, which is not an insignificant figure. If you fancy taking part in the process, you can pledge some money on the Kickstarter page. Depending on how deep your pockets are you could walk away with a range of samples Chet’s work.
Could be the norco but…. I’m having a hard time grasping the concept of “EGO DEATH” (not Chet Zar’s show but the actual definition of the term). I’ll ask my psychologist wife later but right now I’m curious…
Is this like… when you do shrooms? That feeling you have and that way of thinking that comes about?
Can anyone shed some light?
@joeypants If you can’t tell if I am serious I really am. I can’t focus on reading anything intense right now because I’m on norco due to a surgery I had last week and am also at work (busy day). EGO = part of a psyche opposite of ID right? I can’t grasp has EGO can die… Really curious though really want to know wtf this guy is talking about. Wiki Wiki’d it and it’s just too much to focus on. Looking for a short version of what this shit is… When I eat mushrooms my way of thinking totally… Read more »
Wiki – “An ego death is said to be characterized as the perceived loss of boundaries between self and environment, a sense of the loss of “control”, the loss of the accustomed feeling of existing as a “personal agent”, and lose “cognitive-association binding”.[1] This “perceived loss of boundaries between self and environment”[citation needed] is said to be experienced through a sensation that one is the whole universe (and therefore there is no need to differentiate the “I” from the “universe”) or by simply acknowledging the “I” does not exist.”
Yep… this is exactly what I feel when I shroom…. cool…