Solar barge floating in the clouds. It is a constellation referring to Heliopolitan theology. Memphite theology, as the later one, united the others.

I made the sea, symbolizing the north, and the beach very impasto. In turn, Horus in the form of a falcon refers to the symbolism of the moon, which was one of his eyes.

I will show Amun up close. He has Jaime's features. On his head rests a crown composed of a solar disk and ostrich feathers. He has a three-piece necklace on her chest.

In the photo on the left I am with the image in my beloved red beret, on the right you can see the soul, one of the components of the spiritual concept of man.

I wanted to involve my Instagram followers, of whom I have already gathered quite a few, in choosing a motif for the next painting. They were mainly attracted by the Egyptian Cycle, I wanted them to feel that they had an influence on the creation process. My friend from Chile, Jaime, wrote to me with a proposal to paint it as one of the components of the painting, just as Renaissance artists did, weaving portraits of loved ones into the composition.

I decided to present him as the god Amun, a deity always shown in anthropomorphic form. And by the way, I will talk about Hermpolitan Theology in the next posts on Instagram. I painted the god entirely in blue, which was the color that connected Amun with the sky. Quite by accident, it turned out to be Jaime's favorite color. He sent me his photos for the portrait, but I still had to print photos of his male torso, legs, and his hands holding a broom (in the painting, Amon is holding a scepter). I put Amun-Jaime together like a puzzle. It took me a lot of time and a lot of corrections... what a satisfaction it was when I finally succeeded! Painting the hypostasis of Amun - the snake Kematef, the bird Benu, the mountains, the volcano - the Flame Island, the Deser Lake and the tree was much simpler and went much faster. the title of the painting is Lake of Flames (80 x 60 cm; oil on canvas; 2022/23).

Egyptian Atlantis (50 x 80 cm, oil on canvas, 2022) is the apple of my eye. At the beginning of 2022, I wanted to paint something that would not be stylized, but more realistic. Inspired by the idea of ​​my Egyptologist friend, who adores the goddess Maat, I created a more realistic project than the previous ones. What remains stylized in it are Egyptian plant ornaments, present in almost every painting from the series. The assumption was that they were supposed to unify the entire Cycle and act as a "connector". I have a special card with them and I choose a set of several for each painting.

The colors are much cooler compared to the Egyptian world map. After all, painting the depths of the ocean gives you endless opportunities to explore different shades of blue. In Atlantis I again referred to the idea of ​​complementary cycles present in the Egyptian Solar Cycle. Here it is most strongly embodied by the Ouroboros Serpent, literally He-Who-Swallows-Its-His-Own-Tail, a symbol of infinity. Looking at Ouroboros, it is impossible to look at time in a linear way.

And Atlantis... this mystical land where there was constant law and order according to one concept was flooded by ocean waters, wasn't it? Maat, the goddess of justice, symbolizes order here, and the djed column symbolizes durability.

After Atlantis, it was time for another picture strongly rooted in magical realism. And since I am a cat lover, I chose the cat goddesses - Sekhmet in the form of a lioness and Bastet the cat. These are the heroines of the painting Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun) (50 x 60 cm, oil on canvas, 2022). The obligatory, stylized plant motifs are also present here, and the colors are warmer compared to Atlantis. Maybe this was partly due to the fact that I painted the artwork in the summer of 2022.

I introduced the desert and sunset into the composition, which I have always loved painting. The sandy mountain unintentionally looked like a pyramid ;) The painting exudes such... feminine power. It is truly amazing that the ancient Egyptians identified women and goddesses with awe and courage.

The next paintings are two parts of the diptych Egyptian Solar Cycle [(2 x) 80 x 50 cm; oil on canvas, 2020/21]. I designed them together and only then started painting the first painting: Journey of the solar barge during the day. I wanted to paint a motif very characteristic of Egyptian art. so I chose barges that I knew well from the Books of the Underworld, which were one of the key motifs in my master's thesis. I painted both canvases at the turn of 2020 and 2021. I love them - they are so different and at the same time complement each other perfectly. The ancient Egyptians believed that the sun moved in a circle, one semicircle being day and the other being night. The diptych reminds me that everything has an obverse and a reverse, everything passes away and then enters a new cycle. We, as humans, also function in cycles, being an organic part of nature. The Egyptians thought that time flows in cycles, but for us everything has a beginning and an end... Are you sure?

The number of photos I printed for subsequent paintings was systematically increasing. The projects were becoming more and more complicated, so action spontaneously. without a plan,  was too risky.

Beginnings of the cycle

My first painting was Incarnations of the Goddess Hathor (70 x 70 cm; oil on canvas; 2020). I wanted to make a goddess here in two forms, a cow and a sycamore tree. It took me some time to plan the composition. I wanted it to be striped, a bit like in paintings. For the needs of the cycle, I also changed the colors, making them more vivid and referring to Egyptian art. For Incarnation, I made the first proper design on a piece of paper, on which I combined previously printed motifs. Thanks to it, I had everything under control, including the colors.

The theme of the eighth painting, the Creation of the World, is based around Memphite Theology. The creator God in it was Ptah, the creator of the world through the words he spoke. The composition in it is simpler than in the previous ones, and the motifs are reduced to the figure of Ptah, the night sky flowing smoothly into sunrise and four constellations related to the main religious centers in Egypt (Helioplis and Hermopolis): my own: the solar barge, the bull Apis and the eternal Atum combined with the Big Dipper and the Great Bear. The painting is probably the last of the Cycle, at least for some time. I want to venture out into slightly wider creative waters and experiment with other mythologies, especially those from the Americas.

Where does this all start?