Atuman drains light
The name and inspiration for this digital art originate from the ancient Egyptian god Atum.
As I created this art collage using a picture of an African mask I own and a picture of a sunset over a lake, it struck me that it is a recurring archetype in ancient cultures to personify aspects of nature in spirits or gods.
It is one of the greatest drawbacks of the dominance of monotheistic faiths over the last two thousand years that humankind started to see themselves as separate from nature. A superior overlord of the natural world, untouchable and given to take what they need without thought of the consequences. Although we have developed in so many ways compared to our early ancestors, in some ways we have gone backwards.
Throughout this creative process, I imagined how early humans might have thought when they were closer to nature.
I suspect it would have been a combination of respect and awe, fear and thankfulness for the bounties the land provides. These feelings finally developing into personifications, spirits or gods.
A duality bleeds through the human experience, mirrored by the storms that destroys while renewing the land through the rain. The spirit of Atuman appears reflected in the lake, just as the natural phenomenon it represents can reflect both the destructive and regenerative, like the sun.
Many modern-day people have lost this connection to nature, to the detriment of the planet. I find great joy in connecting with nature which I tried to reflect in this art I have shared.
Creative Digital Art Process
In my upcoming series of creative posts, I will be using an image of something different that I own each week (for several different posts) combined with creative commons sources to make various pieces of unique digital art.
This week I chose an African mask that hangs on my wall to evolve into different creatures, or spirits.
The two images were developed for this first piece using a combination of layering/transparency techniques in GIMP and DeepDreamGenerator AI-powered image manipulation.
I then spent a long time experimenting with combining different layers of the final image of the mask (with transparent background) and a few different versions of the landscape put through DeepDreamGenerator.
Source Images Used:
I used two images to make this digital art collage, one of my own and one sourced from unsplash:
I hope you have enjoyed this Haiku poetry and Digital Art.
Thanks for reading.
All image sources in this post are CC licences made using GIMP Photo Editing Suit.
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