ART BY MAX MAGNUS NORMAN:
Older paintings and sculptures

A turtle has spotted the beholder and stops eating the red flowers for a while. In the background there is an observatory surrounded by different stones shaped like the platonic bodies; dodecahedrons, icosahedrons,etc

When I decided to make this painting I had walked around with the image of a turtle in my mind for a while. It seemed to be stuck there until I painted it. One night after a day I've spent painting this painting I dreamed that I was sitting in a park quite like the one on the painting. My field of vision was locked so I could only look down into a wooden box full of earth. I could see the rest of the park in the periphery. Toys lay spread in the box as if children had played quite roughly there. Over and over again a hand held up small papernotes in front of my face. On all notes the word "AVATAR" was written in purple. This became so tedious that I awoke and took a note of the word, which I at that time never had heard of before.Later when I was reading about Indian mythology I got to know that "avatar" is Sanskrit for "descended" and that this is what the incarnations of the Hindu's highest god, Vishnu, is called. In his second incarnation, Vishnu was a turtle named Kurma (creation).
I believe that the wooden box was a symbol of the Earth and that the turtle was of secondary importance. The observatory is a symbol of the consciousness examining the outside world.

If I am an Avatara? I don't know. This may all just be a computer-game and we all may just be one or another sprite giggling around here, thrown out, tied to hands and feet, imagining we are having a jolly good time anyway.

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