Rati Devi is the Hindu goddess of love, carnal desire, lust, passion and sexual pleasure. Rati is the female counterpart, the chief consort and the assistant of Kama(Kamadeva), the god of love.
Acrylic and paint marker on canvas. 35"x48"
Inner Space Embrace
Let us be uniquely our own. I bring my colors as you do yours. In an embrace we become one. United by our Inner Space. We are made of the same stuff.
Minneattle / Seapolis
A follow up to my Coastal Dreams series: "Coastal Realities"! A shoutout to all of my Minneapolis homies who have moved to Seattle.
35"x58"
ConnecToMe
Connect to me.
A connectome is a comprehensive map of neural connections in the brain, and may be thought of as its "wiring diagram". More broadly, a connectome would include the mapping of all neural connections within an organism's nervous system.
Neural Networks connect human hearts through space and time
Washingsun 10x21"
The sun shines on Washington. The sun shines on the trees and the city and the sun shines on me.
MontañAwe
Two weeks ago, four people, two dogs, a canoe, and all of our stuff drove out west in a jeep and found ourselves in a new home. Stopping in Glacier National Park, we soaked in the natural beauty of a land inhabited by bears which we gleefully yelled away. This new world is a blank canvas. What we will do here and who we will become is up to us but one thing I have defined is the 72x44in canvas that will adorn our living room.
Coastal Dreams
This latest art series merges bodies with the earth.
Coastal Dreams 3: Commissioned work
Coastal Dreams 2: Commissioned work
Original Coastal Dreams: this piece is still available for sale. Message for inquiries.
Depicting Sacred Geometries
A Yantra is a sacred diagram used in Eastern mysticism to balance the mind or focus it on spiritual concepts. The act of wearing, depicting, enacting and/or concentrating on a yantra is held to have spiritual or astrological or magical benefits in the Tantric traditions of the Indian religions.
As I attempted to recreate these geometries, I was perplexed by the asymmetrical symmetry of it. The faint lines behind the triangles are my original attempt. The colors in the washed out background were my mixed emotions. The red in the top left corner is all that is left of my anger. The blue in the bottom left is all that remains of my sadness. Creating this piece has helped me through some emotionally turbulent times and makes me want to teach therapeutic art classes.
Explorations in Cardiac Electromagenetism
23" x 56" Acrylic on Canvas
The idea that the heart produces electromagnetic fields of energy that can sync up and affect others has been the subject of many of my latest works. The following works are part of this ongoing series:
Cardiac EMP shows what it might look like to love the world so much that your heart overcharges and bursts into a pulse of electromagnetic love that destroys all evil.
Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 24"
Heart of Birds came from a feeling of letting love free.
Watercolor on paper 12" x 12"
Body of Light explores the movement of energy in the body during flow state
Acrylic on canvas 3ftx5ft
BioRadiance depicts the vasculature of the head and the radiant energy we produce
Ink on paper, 12" x 12"
Heartsync is inspired by the phoenomenon that lovers heartbeats can sync up according to recent research.
Watercolor on paper 12"x12"
Eternal Effervescence. A study of moments in motion.
This gestural piece depicts a moment that transcends time. Effervescent and yet eternal, fleeting moments can captivate and pause time.
Natalie Doud, Ink and acrylic on canvas, 30"x40"
i&i
"I and I (also spelled I&I, InI, or Ihi yahnh Ihi) is a complex term, referring to the oneness of Jah (God) and every human. Rastafari scholar E. E. Cashmore: "I and I is an expression to totalize the concept of oneness. 'I and I' as being the oneness of two persons. So God is within all of us and we're one people in fact. I and I means that God is within all men."
This painting is a self portrait referencing the oneness of the body mind and spirit with nature. Inspired by the Californian coastline and patterns of abalone shells from a road trip across the west cost, i&i explores identity and natural patterns.
~ Natalie Doud
The Creation of Atom
I have been obsessed with creation myths since I was a child. Imagining how we came to be felt like a secret subversion of power. My stories were equally valid as any of the ones I had been told by adults. The more science I would tie in, the more valid my theories felt. We can all imagine and we can all create. The very fact that we are human endows us with the power to create and that makes us incredibly powerful. The Creation of Atom celebrates and explores the idea of creation and imagination.
Feedback Loop
I am a positive feedback loop and an incurable optimist. I take in energy from others and send it back out with my own positive spin. When I spend time with the right people, anything is possible. I will never know where the world stops and I begin.
We output our inputs and input our outputs.
Learning Empathy from Shakespeare and Twilight
Empathy, like anything else, is a skill. It can be learned, practiced, or forgotten. Think for a moment about a piece of art or cultural expression that you completely and utterly do not understand. It might be this, or this, or this... They seem like strange and obtuse things in this world, like the crazy uncle who shows up to family reunions. But empathy is not an exercise with things you already care about, empathy is a skill that derives most value when applied to what you would normally dismiss.
Let’s try this exercise on two seemingly opposite categories of art. I’ve always struggled to appreciate classical art. I didn’t hate it but I found it boring and irrelevant. I didn’t understand it. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the confounding modern series called Twilight. Why couldn’t Bella just get over Edward? The answer lies in the mindset of the audience. In this case, both Shakespeare and Meyer alike are speaking to a particularly passionate and emotional stage of romantic relationships. To people who have lived and experienced those types of relationships, these stories resonate very deeply.
I began to see culture in a different light. I wondered what issues might plague the juggalos or the furries. I turned the eye on myself and tried to discover why I like the art I like. Why do tUnE-yArDs and african music resonate with me so much? I won’t delve into the specific reasons I discovered for my tastes, but I learned the importance of taking the time to make sense of that which we don’t immediately understand. This view of culture lends itself to empathy and unlocks the key to understanding art and audiences alike. In our work at Synaptic Design, this skill is fundamental to making successful technology. The apps and systems we create are rarely intended for us. We must adopt the mindset of our clients and users in order to create something that they find worthwhile. If we can’t understand where our audience is coming from, then we will certainly fail.
— Natalie Doud