I began this series after travelling in India. Upon my return I felt that I was accompanied by what can best be described as numinous presences, no doubt echoes of the many elaborately envisioned deities I encountered in my journey. A group of hieratic beings began to emerge as I painted, which I called Psychopomp, meaning guide of souls (ψυχο, soul + πομπός escort, conductor, guide). A psychopomp conducts the soul across transformational watersheds, much as the psychopompal god Hermes was able to move fluidly between the realms of the Gods, humans, and the Underworld, conducting souls across the threshold between the living and the dead. Reflecting on the fact that human beings pass through many “little deaths” in the course of a lifetime, it seemed that the guidance of a psychopomp could be present in watershed moments of our lives, transformative endings and new beginnings, as much as in moments of crossing the threshold between waking and dreaming. In this way the numinous energy of the psychopomp can be understood as a guiding presence that arises in times of change and transformation.

Psychopomp was followed by another series of figures, similarly hieratic, but with different qualities, which I called Rigden, a Tibetan term for enlightened kings.