Sacred Heart of the Earth

Sagrado Corazón de la Tierra por Tanya Torres

Sacred Heart of the Earth, 20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2012.

Religious symbols offer a sort of anchor for prayer, meditation and thought, but once you have left them behind, their meaning tends to evolve beyond recognition. New ideas take their place of holiness. New visions emerge from the depths of your soul. Only the truth that has always been remains and reemerges into a different, or not so different, vision.


The first time I heard the word pantheism, I heard it in relation to the earth. Particularly, poet Julia de Burgos wanted to go back to the earth after she died. Writer Luis Rafael Sanchez explained that this was a form of pantheism, a reverence for nature, a wanting to be one with its spirit.

It was at that time that I began wanting what Julia de Burgos wanted. Not to die, but to belong. I don't know how to plant, I am bad at vocally honoring the Earth. I don't even like camping. My only offering to her is to paint her spirits and to try in some way to find the symbols of its holiness. This new series of paintings seeks a pantheistic view of nature and tends to find ways to connect with traditional symbols of holiness. It was not a purposeful pursuit, but one led by the imagination.

I was not thinking about the Sacred Heart image when I first made the drawing that preceded this painting, but I had been so exposed to religious imagery by the end of painting Mary Magdalene in 2010, that I have to recognize the inevitable connection of the burning image of the Sacred Heart to this sacred heart where the fire got covered with a bloody mix of alizarim crimson and the green grasses and branches that grow out of its invisible brightness.

It is the Sacred Heart of the Earth, offering its sacred gift of life. The sky, which belongs to us all, and is Spanish is a homophone of Heaven, envelops it peacefully. It once was a burning heart, now covered with the layers of earth that ground and make fruitful this endless embrace.

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Exhibited at the Prague Convention Center during April 2012.

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