Image Insights: Above the Night

Let's talk (or, you know, I'll write and you read) about the opposing states and forces in our lives. Often times, when we think of contrast or opposition, we think of clashing or conflict. But that's not always the case.

This image is about the harmony of contrast. The balance of light and dark. For the most part, our contrasts aren't conflict. Opposing feelings and states exist within us at the same time; layered up into a complex stack of a person. Love and hate, indifference and compassion, boldness and caution. The rest of nature is the same way. Growth and decay, safety and danger, sustenance and poison... they often occupy the very same spaces.

This image was originally inspired by a conversation I overheard about how someone had changed and it was like "night and day". I am very literal, and often have to sort of process idioms like this for a second or two when people use them, even ones I'm well familiar with. They tend to first create a literal picture for me and then I go "oh yeah, opposites..."  So, I sat there for a while with that notion of a person containing both the night night sky and a sunny sky caught in my imagination. I thought about the concept and did some sketching, and this was the image I came up with to represent the dual nature of, well, everything.