A Choreographed Alchemy

I’m at home, in bed, reading a book that I bought for myself while shopping for Christmas presents. In it I come across a word, ‘ataraxia’, which I need to look up. Coined by the Greek skeptic, Pyrrho, it’s defined as a ‘state of serene calmness’, ‘peace and freedom from fear’, ‘stoical indifference’, ‘a pleasure that comes when the mind is at rest’. I’m thinking about this word and I’m thinking about Christiaan Conradie’s paintings, in particular the one of an elderly man, submerged chest-deep in a fathomless expanse of black liquid, his head and shoulders sun-kissed against a warm, pastel sky.