As Above, So Below (2006), chapter 18 from The Works

A Journey in Seeing

A long-term visual memoir by Tineke Storteboom.

Each chapter is published as it is written. Together they form an ongoing book about the development of an artistic practice over nearly four decades.

In 2006 I was invited to create a permanent work for the entrance hall of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior.

Rather than making one monumental painting, I chose to build the work from many small paintings.

Each panel could exist on its own.

Together they formed a single landscape.

The title, As Above, So Below, refers to an ancient idea: that the inner and the outer world mirror one another. The visible landscape becomes a reflection of an invisible one.

From a distance the work appears as one image.

As you move closer, it dissolves into dozens of individual paintings, each carrying its own atmosphere, gesture and silence.

I didn't realise it then, but this way of working would become a constant throughout my practice.

A single work would repeatedly divide itself into many parts.

And those many parts would continue to belong to one whole.

"The way up and the way down are one and the same."

Heraclitus

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God."

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin