Detachment

taylorbermanart.com this is the image on the business card of a lovely man I met last weekend at my show in Minnesota.  He gave me the card and I only just went to his website tonight, where there are many very interesting images he has created.   About this image he said:
For the portraiture part of this piece, I referenced a photograph of an actual Indian Sadhu. In conducting further research, I discovered that swans are a symbol of detachment in Hindu iconography, and rightfully so, given the following symbolic analogy: Much like the holy men of India, who are present in their bodily existence yet strictly resist attachment to anything worldly, swans can sit in water (the world), yet without getting wet (attached) due to the oils in their feathers (or in the Sadhu’s case, devotion to strict asceticism).

For Sadhus, this renunciation of the worldly is seen as a necessary step towards attaining moksha, or liberation. It is for this reason that the top of the figure’s head slowly disintegrates as it moves upwards; because in this belief system the higher or more enlightened one becomes, the less significant the physical plane is as one directs their attention towards spiritual living. The ripple of water underneath is simply to suggest that first step of detachment on the upward path towards moksha.