The Human Cycle of Intelligent Madness

• Alexia Caprariello, Fine Arts, University of Delaware

• David Brinley, Department of Art and Design, University of Delaware

I am a multimedia artist whose work portrays visual perceptions of the non physical, while simultaneously critiquing the overlooked and misunderstood in the physical world.  Abnormality is my goal here, so the more obscure experimentation the better.  My painting technique is very expressionistic and symbolic and my style mimics surrealistic, editorial cartoon Impressionism.  For my project, “The Human Cycle of Intelligent Madness”, I’ve decided to focus on the uncanny balance between the insignificance of human existence and human existentialism.  The project draws inspiration from author HP Lovecraft and painter Nicholas Roerich.  Pairing Lovecraft’s cosmic horror stories with Roerich’s fantastical paintings, my mind is posed with one question that seems to supersede all the others.  How much can a human being comprehend before their intelligence leads them to madness?  In three oil paintings, I’ve depicted a journey through the human cycle of intelligent madness.  The journey begins with “Birth”, which visualizes the creation of humanity, as well as the insignificance of the human being in comparison to all that exists in our vast universe.  Next is “Intelligent Madness” which can be seen as a peak into the mind and all that it seeks to know.  It also represents the human decision to take that conquest of truth and knowledge which will inevitably lead that being to madness.  Last is “Death”, highlighting the relationship between death and forbidden, divine knowledge.  Once discovering our insignificance, the human being must be led to its end.  Maybe we’re not supposed to know?  Yet, that very need to know is what drives our existence?  The more we learn, the more we delve ourselves into madness, the more we seek to know.  The uncomfortableness of being unsure proves to open up new areas of my mind that I am infinitely slipping inside of.  With this uncomfortableness, comes inquiry, and with this inquiry… comes creation.