animated flames and idea of fire/burning

There is something about animated flames that is especially captivating/magical/hellish. It's an entirely different feeling to CGI flames. They feel more authentic, made to move from one frame to the next. I know I will always remember the presence of an animated flame more than a special effects one. It's almost like you can feel it more.

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to flames. In my boat painting last year, I suppose the end result looked like they were engulfed in flames. Somebody said to me the other day it looks like the scene is all on fire. I didn't do it on purpose, it just sort of happened. I guess it is a real fast way of turning something into a situation of emergency, of pain, of suffering, connotations to hell are also there. You might also think of self-immolation examples in protest against political/religious reasons, if it were on a figure. Usually, though, I think I would interpret flames on a body as a symbol for inner torture. I remember when I was a teenager, and something bad/traumatic is happening, and I felt this powerful surge of manic, depressive, frustration, I would imagine a handful of knives going through my heart because that's what it felt like - and if I imagined that then maybe the feelings I felt in that moment were from those knives, and not what was happening around me. It might have been a coping mechanism to feel numb, or create a mental distance from reality. This distance also ties in with the contrast in warm/cool tones I mentioned in my last post.

It is interesting because I don't think I've ever dreamed of flames itself - the freshest memory of something close to fire would probably be the natural disaster dream wherein I died by falling (slow-motion but instantly, simultaneously, time has no logic/place in dreams..) into that glowing, red-hot volcano. It felt like I was in the eye of a hurricane, calm, numb, but the fear of death gripped me like nothing I've ever felt before as it consumed my surroundings. I looked a little bit at the symbol of fire in dreams, it's what you would expect, transformation, purification, illumination, etc etc. depending on the context of the dreamscape. What I didn't think about are the ideas of passion/desire/anger - those are all very powerful emotions that reflect the nature of fire. I can't help but feel skeptical about some of the very specific dream-readings on these blogs.. though I did come across the possible meaning of 'a house on fire': which I realised, I HAVE dreamt of in the past year... I think I noted it down in my journal... it was a cabin in the woods (I was dreaming about a cabin in the woods twice consecutively at the time, strange..) and my friends were there too, I remember the presence of water/tanks in the cabin the day before the burning, in the morning the fire started and in a panic we all ran out... my memory of it is foggy now... but anyway, some random information regarding houses on fire I found:

A common object that appears in many fire dreams is a house. Our house or home often represents us or our family. Dreaming that our house is on fire may indicate large changes that are coming and uncertainty over those changes. It may also reflect tumultuous personal emotions, loss of mental peace, or being overwhelmed by strong feelings.
Seeing the ruins of our house or town after a fire indicates loss and sadness. We may be worried of losing someone or something important to us (e.g. family, friends, job, money), or have recently experienced such a loss in our life.
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What does a house fire in a dream mean? A house fire in a dream can be rather worrying. This dream indicates that you are unable to control your emotions, it can also suggest a loss at work or a financial loss. To see the fire consume a house indicates hot tempers and change. If your own house was on fire then this can be associated with difficult relationships in life. As the house indicates our own comfort the house fire in dreams denote change. If you dream of someone burning your house down, this can suggest you do not feel you belong. To dream of more than one house fire can be associated with a difficult time in life.
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What did the dream psychologist Carl Jung say about dreaming of fire? Generally “fire” is connected to our emotions. Carl Jung believed that the fire is representative to our psychological transformation. The flame represents the light that is needed to guide us in life. Jung also thought that the fire signifies a bad temper or an argument between others. The dream of a fire is often a significant omen related to an important event in your subconscious mind, either about security or passion. The meaning of this dream varies between: 1. A negative omen (a situation will burn you). 2. The omen for action. If we review the dream in detail, this is normally connected to a carefully correlated event in your life. The flames in the dream may signify the barriers to overcome in regards to your emotions. If you dream of a small or a weak fire, this dream indicates that you are going to experience happiness in your life. To dream of not being able to start a fire indicates that a work situation should be approached in a diplomatic matter.

This made me think of the recent loss of peoples' homes and habitats etc from the fires in the US and Australia as well as the terribly sad burning of the Amazon forest...(this just indicates the end of the world to me..) yes, that's it, the imagery of fire engulfing large areas of land, feels like the 'end of the world'... which is also something I'm always thinking about... does the death of yourself sort of equate to the end of the world? the world that you see ends in your perception as you cease to exist (which religions differ in belief... I'm not sure exactly what I believe in, but I do believe the good you did in your life will amount to something in the afterlife) this 'end of the world' trope has been used countlessly in film... remember that 2012 scare? that didn't happen the way it told it, of course... I think the end of the world is also applicable to when you lose the most important loved one... if I lost my mother it would be the end of the world to me... but here I am talking about the bigger picture of the world, that sinking feeling as you literally see before you something Big coming, something that no one on this earth could ever prevent from killing us all... that imminent realisation of, This is It...... well, that's what I felt in my nightmare.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-50410481 this bbc article has the type of imagery I'm thinking of..

the visual language of domestic things/furniture on fire..

'Australian firefighters battle a blaze at close range'

'This home in California was overshadowed by towering smoke plumes'

unnatural colours in suburbia...

smog completely obscuring clarity.. end of the world feeling..

'A burned neighbourhood is seen in Santa Rosa, California'.. this visually reminds me of that
one shot in Isle of Dogs where he crash-landed his plane onto trash island

I've also seen this set in person in the Isle of Dogs exhibition..
truly remarkable the way they play with scale and perspective

The videos I can find on youtube about the burning Amazon is sad, terrifying, and worst of all, it is easy to be desensitised from this imagery, as it is so physically far from us... one day we are all posting about it on our instagrams stories and the next day we are back on our first-world mundane worries. I make myself sick. I don't wish for us to be desensitised, so I will continue to use Real imagery like the ones I see in these videos in paintings... the imagery here is rich, I hope that will strike people of the reality we are in. It is so easy to fall back about global issues because of how little power we think we have. I am part of that group, I am guilty for not feeling like I can do anything, all I can do is mourn the future death of the planet, and the real End Of The World.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkaV2jJMqe4 :

the white and green /// contrast with the red and black. colour symbolism and evident in nature. is it sick to find imagery like this beutfiul. beauytiful melancholy. lament, the poem. - owl city's use of langauge and the name itself.* will post more in other post.

Thinking of the imagery of the burning forests and homes made me think about the horrific use of agent orange in the Vietnam war, for some reason... even though it is not actually orange/fire, its destructive power is as terrifying. (today, it looks similar to hong kong's situation...but that is an entirely different context) Just, how could anyone... I cannot wrap my head around giving this kind of order... you must be completely detached from empathy or reality if you could do anything in that evil magnitude... the world is full of these people... it makes me think of the lyrics from Marina's song Savages:

Murder lives forever
And so does war
It's survival of the fittest
Rich against the poor
At the end of the day
It's a human trait
Hidden deep down inside of our DNA

One man can build a bomb
Another run a race
To save somebody's life
And have it blow up in his face
I'm not the only one who
Finds it hard to understand
I'm not afraid of God
I am afraid of Man

Is it running in our blood
Is it running in our veins
Is it running in our genes
Is it in our DNA
Humans aren't gonna behave
As we think we always should
Yeah, we can be bad as we can be good

Underneath it all, we're just savages
Hidden behind shirts, ties and marriages
How could we expect anything at all
We're just animals, still learning how to crawl

We live, we die
We steal, we kill, we lie
Just like animals
But with far less grace
We laugh, we cry
Like babies in the night
Forever running wild
In the human race

Another day, another tale of rape
Another ticking bomb to bury deep and detonate
I'm not the only one who finds it hard to understand
I'm not afraid of God
I'm afraid of Man

You can see it on the news
You can watch it on TV
You can read it on your phone
You can say it's troubling
Humans aren't gonna behave
As we think we always should
Yeah, we can be bad as we can be good

..All the hate coming out from a generation

Who got everything, and nothing guided by temptation
Were we born to abuse, shoot a gun and run
Or has something deep inside of us come undone?
Is it a human trait, or is it learned behavior
Are you killing for yourself, or killing for your savior?

-symbol of natural disaster dreams.

-sustains us, but also destroys. -the first gift of fire in greek mythology

Anyway, back to animated flames: Maleficent in Disney's sleeping beauty is no doubt one of the most memorable villains, she transforms into a terrifying dragon at the end, but throughout the film her green films have been ablaze almost constantly, which is part of her signature identity. The strange purple / green flames or colour scheme presented in her design accentuates the evilness in her character, making it all the more memorable...there is a certain unusualness/witchcraft/magic connotation in the presence of flames that are not their usual depicted colour of orange/red.

Of course, night on bald mountain has a strong presence of flames, as chernabog throws the demons/ghosts into the burning mountain. With the presence of chernabog who is mirroring the Devil/Satan, the flames seem all the more hellish/powerful.