The new title is “The Waking Edge”

Graphite on Illustration Board 39” x 31”


This work is of the precise point when conscience is awakened, the experience of sudden reality. It happens when we first wake and it happens suddenly, unexpectedly in life’s journey. Nothing here is precise to anyone except to myself. It’s personal in its symbolism yet there are universal symbols as well. The background is drawn more for the “feel” it gives the overall drawing, industrial, decomposing almost contradictory to what Jessica looks like yet her sudden frozen stare brings a different reality to the work one of angst. Symbols such as a metal halo, the meeting of circles forming a vesica, bones, stones and even her attire are important icons in this story. Yet to explain these would gives too much away. Since it’s a teaching forum I tell much more then I feel comfortable with, but it gives an indication to my process, the only true hint would normally be the title, “The Waking Edge”


Like much of my work there’re are people who I connect with; it opens up their imaginations by adding their personal insights, yet some will see nothing but the negative and transpose every clue. As always, what the viewer sees in this work is the truth for that individual and I find that much more interesting in the long run.


Armin Mersmann