Mike Butler
Shortly after graduating from the
Ontario College of Art in 1980, I
purchased a Color Computer from Radio
Shack. After teaching myself to
program in Color Basic, I began
creating my first digital art.
I was captivated by the endless
streams of digital imagery that were
possible as well as the fascinating
and surreal, abstract patterns that
the computer generated simply by
tweaking a few parameters and
formulas. I was hooked.
What began as a simple experiment and
idle pastime turned into an obsession
and then into a quest. What was I
looking for in this infinite stream of
strangely beautiful abstract images?
There was a truth here and an
unearthly beauty. The images didn't
represent anything other than
themselves. They were their own truth
and their own fierce beauty.
It was as if I was communicating with
some invisible being who was telling
me an extremely compelling story. Some
nameless presence had captured my
imagination and it seemed strangely
important to give it my complete
attention.
It became apparent to me that the
images weren't simply decorative,
although they soon filled my walls,
but rather they were objects of
meditation, quiet contemplation, and
even veneration.
They transformed my everyday world as
well. I began to see everything as an
unknowable abstraction that emerged
from behind the veil of worldly
concerns. The world had brightened as
if the sun had come out from behind
the clouds and the world sparkled with
a wholesome freshness that I hadn't
experienced since childhood.
The world of frozen objects melted
into a fluid ocean of perceptions
dancing free and unencumbered by
expectations of completion or
explanation.
The images emerging from my computer's
screen are not my own creation or
invention, but rather they are gifts
from some unknowable, divine source of
mathematical perfection.
The heart essence of the motivation
for creating or contemplating abstract
art, for me, is the search for truth
and beauty. Truth and beauty, these
rare and precious jewels, shine like
beacons in a muddled world of banal
entertainment and distraction. How are
we to go about actualizing them in our
everyday lives?
A powerful and profound method for
nurturing these gems is the meditation
on and contemplation of abstract art.
If we want to understand the deep and
subtle meaning behind this art form,
however, we need to uncover the
primordial world of grace that is
hiding in plain sight.
The everyday world that we live in,
the world of mortgages, jobs and bank
statements is a shadow world. It's the
world that our discursive minds have
created that obscures the real world,
the world of pure perception.
We see the primal world of naked
reality through the filters of
thoughts, feelings and emotions that
our monkey minds generate and project
onto this vast, lush, gorgeous field
of sensory experience. These filters
create a version of reality that
obscures the sacred space of the here
and now, leaving us in a stale,
mundane world of frenzied activity,
wrestling with our hopes and fears.
Abstract art helps to break down the
habit of solidifying our perceptions
into a leaden world of frozen objects.
It is the tool that I use to play with
my perceptions and continually
rediscover the fundamental ground of
existence which is stainless
perfection.
To be an artist is to have hungry
eyes. There is a celestial feast
everywhere you look.
Mike Butler's art on the Web
Mike Butler's AutoGallery exhibit