Welcome Back to Aamora

Michael Ast

Part Two: “MIRARI“

The images that make up Mirari are derived from an attempt to illustrate a recurring dream I’ve had for years. In this dream I find myself on a Caribbean shoreline peering outward to a seemingly paradisaical horizon.

What appears almost at arm’s reach arises a city, where castle turrets glisten in a fantastical pastel atmosphere. Perhaps they are rooftops of the legendary Atlantis, which I easily validated during my childhood days.

 I hear laughter and shouts in the foreground from shadowy figures wading and diving in the ocean. I see the sea foam bubble ashore. There is a prevailing feeling of restlessness as i gaze in amazed wonderment at the reflective hues of that Paradise city.

It seems all week I’ve been on a vacation with friends and spouse, who are ducking in and out of a small beach town. We are constantly on mopeds turning corners on narrow streets. On our last morning before departure I am alone laying in the sand.

I marvel for a quick dose of the divine . . . and then I wake. The dream is vivid, photographic and lit like a Hollywood Babylon.

I have chased this Summer with a conscious longing to recreate some fragments of that dream. It’s an impossibility, of course, but in the process I’ve given myself some fine reverie while the sun warmed my skin and the revelers in my periphery.”

see more of Michael’s work on his website.

Part one of MIRARI