Acrylic paint on watercolour paper, Suzette Clough 2015
In her book, Visual Medicine – the Art of the Unknown, Suzette Clough describes the experience of finding herself in a profound conversation with paint…and what she comes to call the spiritual creative practice of Visual Medicine:
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” –Albert Einstein
How can I give shape to the vastness of spirit, energy, mind? How does it move through creative thinking?
We know from current neuroscientific research using brain scanning that the right hemisphere of the brain is the hub of our infinite capacity for new creative growth. I believe the creative right brain is the part of our mind that can also listen to the voice of Spirit because it is uniquely receptive to nonverbal communication. The right brain understands the world through relational associations – linking words and image, music, rhythm, tone and nuance – and tangential, complex, abstract, non-linear thought processes. These abstract linkings of body memory, musicality and relationality cannot be arrived at through linear left-brain logic. These associations are drawn from thinking that is shaped at the edge of our awareness, not censored by the desire to trim outcome to a presupposed expectation. These are truly new thoughts that arise in the moment from our spontaneous imagination and long to find a container or form through which they can be revealed, explored and understood. This is the potential moment of a paradigm shift of awareness and consciousness. This is the moment where we can receive the communication and enter a new conversation.
