the end is near

Today I spent a few hours trying to bring to fruition an idea I have been thinking about.  It is for a collective show of works with the theme "the end is near", organized by the Potemkin Collective.

I really like this theme because endings are also beginnings.  Endings can be sad or unsettling, as an end to life or love, but they can also be very exciting or calming, as an end to pain or an end to restriction.  I guess it boils down to the idea of moving from one state to another.

As a way of showing that change of state, I was trying for a human figure moving from dark into light, or light into dark, coming out of the canvas or going into it - but my figure wound up looking rather like an alien emerging from some sort of womb.  Although I am a fan of some types of science fiction literature and can see how this might work for the theme, it wasn't quite what I wanted to portray.  

So I began to explore some other ideas about waiting and/or balancing.  Still not getting across what's in my mind.  

Then I did a little reaching figure in a white circle.  Hmmm, not bad.  I made another one on the purple canvas, so they are reaching towards one another:

Or perhaps one is pulling and the other resisting.  Perhaps they're arguing, or perhaps they're supporting one another.  Perhaps it's simply a more formal case of contrasting the rectangle shape with the circular.  Anyway, it seems to embody the idea of a change of state, which is my interpretation of "the end".