Utilizing the elements of line and abstraction, this work seeks to make concrete the vast network of hidden forces and information that surrounds us. The image depicts an information ecology where ideas or atoms of thoughts rise and fall between a sea of undifferentiated lines and an architecture of higher concepts.
The title, Remanence, Salt and Light evokes both science and scripture, Boston’s past and its present. “Remanence” is a term for the trace memory left in magnetic materials; here it simultaneously evokes the concepts of memory, remnant and resonance. “Salt and Light” refers to John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who, on the deck of the Arabella quoted the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13-16) to the new settlers. Winthrop called for Boston to become a “City on a Hill”, whose light cannot be hidden, and to waste not the salt (or flavor) of life. Quoted by politicians of every party, this famous comparison has itself become a “remanence” of an idea.
Mural painted by: Matthew Ritchie, Tricia O’Neill, Steve Brettler, Noella Cotnam, Christine LaLonde, Nelson Licona and Liam McAlpin.