Permanent Art Installation — BLT Residential Property, Stamford, 2020

The Five Elements consists of five large-scale paintings and forms part of a permanent installation of 16 works by Roja Shams in Stamford, Connecticut, USA.

The series draws on the ancient idea that everything in the universe is composed of five elements: Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Space.

Our bodies, like the world around us, are in a constant state of transformation. Cells die and regenerate continuously, reminding us that what appears fixed is in fact an ongoing process of creation and renewal. This raises a question at the heart of the series: what happens when we bring greater awareness to the intelligence behind life itself?

We often identify with what we have accumulated rather than with the source of who we are. Much of life can be spent on autopilot, absorbed in thought, emotion and reaction rather than in the direct experience of being alive. Psychological experience can become so dominant that we begin to think about life more than we actually experience it.

While Western science has traditionally placed particular emphasis on the brain and nervous system, Eastern philosophical traditions such as Taoism and Yoga offer a broader understanding of awareness as something experienced throughout the body.

But increased consciousness is not simply a matter of thinking differently. It involves creating a space between ourselves and the constant activity of the mind, allowing us to experience something beyond our habitual psychological and physical processes.

Perhaps this begins with one drop of spirituality: an awareness beyond thought and identity. A moment in which we stop interpreting life and simply experience it. The Five Elements reflects on this relationship between consciousness, the world and the elemental forces from which life continuously emerges.

Water

Wind

Fire

Earth

Ether/Space