Edmond Brooks-Beckman: The Contraction of Ein Sof
The Contraction of Ein Sof comes from a series of Jewish creation myths within the esoteric traditions of Kabbalah. The beginning of life in mainstream thought emanated from the word of God. Within the Kabbalah traditions, however, an idea emerged that creation started through contraction. God, described as Ein Sof or the infinite light, contracted itself to open up enough space for life to emerge, a concept called Tzimtzum. This body of work explores the possibilities of this idea of contraction, as a necessary component for life to emerge within my paintings.
Focusing on the notion of contraction has created a lens through which to reflect on the relationship between memory and mark making. It has opened a safe space to go wild with my marks as there is always room to remove paint and “contract” the painting’s mass. Through the use of a stanley blade I cut, pierce, scratch, carve and excavate paint. Using this process, I make the once visible marks on the canvas invisible, the clogged up surfaces breathable again.
My first memory of making the visible invisible comes from the ritual unmarking of my Jewish self. I remember the cavernous building that housed the Cheder school in North West London. The habitual hiding of my Jewishness would immediately take place when I stepped out of shul, removing my kippa and tucking my Magen David below my top. I felt that my identifying marks needed hiding. I was engaged in a pro- cess of unmarking — a concept that I return to consistently in my painting.
The Secret Jew is a painting made by the Jewish American painter R.B Kitaj. It struck a chord. I recall the journey to my Barmitzvah in my uncle’s Mercedes. Proudly driving me to synagogue in his open top, exposing me to the world. I slunk down in the passenger seat, pretending to sleep so that none of my friends would see me and think of me as the “rich Jew”. I became overwhelmed by my need to hide, to disown my Jewishness. These themes have returned to me throughout my upbringing, tracing themselves — as Kitaj explores — from deep within my history and that of my family.
I pictured each painting in this series as a torah scroll within which to write lines of Hebrew and English text. Words that I have collected over the last year that have re connected me to my own Jewish identity. Through a process of squeegeeing and scratching the painted text the letters become illegible, fragmented until they are completely lost. It’s as if the message is passed through whispers from person to person losing its original meaning in the process and ultimately transforming into something new by the end.
Grappling with a practice that questions itself, its purpose and how it came to be, has led to reflections on my upbringing and its relationship to the concept of Tzimtzum. I can trace that link back to a psychological practice that I received from early childhood. At home my mother created space for critical thinking post arguments. After the flames had simmered and the rage leaked out enough, we had space for empathy. To enable healthier relationships in my family depended on a process of contraction of the self, to leave space for the other, Tzimtzum.
I first encountered Jung’s shadow theory when reading his book on my mum’s colour coded bookshelf. Jung’s exploration of a “shadow side”, talks about the consequences of not engaging with darkness within us. I have adopted this concept in my painting, using the notion of Tzimtzum alongside it as a way to contract, or shape the shadow. I put myself in a state of mind that gives room for my own wildness to erupt onto the surface of a canvas. However I seem to focus on how this substance can be reduced or thinned out in the work. I need to empty or purge something — to reveal the shadow — in order to become lighter. I have a fight with the canvas and then we explore the struggle in order to resolve and make up. Tzitzum reveals itself here as the tool to which my own bodily darkness can have space to erupt and be shaped — a way of shaping shadows.
I conceive of my paintings as extensions of my body, both are vessels of information, evidence of a life lived, an accumulation of events embedded within. It is my belief that this information can be made visible through intuitive mark making and that this process is a way in which the darkness, the shadow side can surface rather than bottle up.
The idea of Tzimtzum, that is so central to this body of work, has given me a lens through which to explore my identity in relation to mark making. It has created a frame of reference to structurally and conceptually support an unfolding of self that can hold both my wild and intricately controlled intentions. It has created room for me to unveil hidden experiences that lie below the surface, waiting to appear and speak itself out of invisibility and into the light.
-Edmond Brooks-Beckman
