Shows and Exhibits

Cedar Street Galleries presents new works by
Alan Leitner

Cedar Street Galleries will be hosting the Alan Leitner art show, featuring new mixed media abstract paintings.

Philosophy, religion and alchemy are the sources of my inspiration. Philosophers have always impressed me with the way they work through their problems in search of the meaning of life. Spiritual people have their own way of doing the same thing. Sengai, the famous 18th century Japanese Zen monk tried to make difficult teachings accessible to everyone. One of his most famous paintings was of a circle, square and triangle, his picture of the universe. Using similar visual symbolism, alchemists were finding the meaning of life though their quest of discovering the Philosophers Stone, how to transmute lead into gold, possibly a metaphor for something much less material.

Time, space and form are the three most direct aspects of our physical reality. These things break down into dualities like time/timeless, form/space, and matter/spirit. In Sengai’s painting “The Universe”, the circle represents the infinite, and the infinite is at the basis of all beings. But the infinite in itself is formless. We are endowed with senses and intellect and so demand tangible forms. Hence a triangle. The triangle is the beginning of all forms. Out of it first comes the square. A square is the triangle doubled. This doubling process goes on infinitely and we have the multitude of things, which the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu calls 'the ten thousand things', that is, the universe.

These paintings reveal my engagement with this dialogue.

— Alan Leitner

View Artworks by Alan Leitner