Compersion with Donna Mason Sweigart

April 2021

Compersion describes the feeling happiness or joy experienced because of the happiness and or joy of another person. Relocating the word from its original context to this allows and opportunity to explore facets, or nodes, of Emmanuel Levinas’ Wisdom of Love. The word resounds with Reverence. A jealous God embodies one of its own deadly sins. Yet the question of arriving at a supersensible awareness at the expense of apotheosis is formidable and yet inevitable.

Awareness, and seeing, comes to us as the antonym of being jealous. Each piece in this exhibition function as a node of exploration and interrelatedness. We poke and prod around our own sense of numinous spirituality, mining small pieces of truth. Labor, isolation, perceived separation as construct of tribalism, minute separations of us and them, in essence rendering the Other invisible. Reclaiming spirituality entails deconstructing existing and elevated deities. Gathering works gained from several bodies of work, intended for sometimes specific places, creates a space where certitude is suspended, and relativity is implicit.