Are Angels real?

 

Angels are referenced not in a few religions or text, but throughout the world sphere under different names, Christianity, Islam (Rasul), Judaism, Bahai Faith, Zorastroism (fravashi), Neoplatanism (from Plato’s period), Sikhism (Azreal), Theosophism, Hinduism (Devas), Buddism (Devas).  Ancient Egypt and other Polytheist religions considered angels in a form not unlike mini gods, coming down to aid those in need.

 

So an entire world, with different languages, heritages, cultures, mores, norms, historically diverse periods, without communication have concluded that Angels are in fact real.

 

For Collins, who has always believed that there are angels which appear throughout our lives, the question was not if they are real, but rather, is our conception of them somehow airbrushed into innocuous saintly souls and thus rendered artistically, whether by Titian or Da Vinci,  in equally simplistic narrative.

 

Would not Angels, by the very task they undertake, by the very nature of overwhelming power far beyond our own, act not with a simple wave of the hand or gesture, but rather with complete fury of love, battle worn with experience leading to fearsomeness that overcomes all.

 

Collins turns our notion of the Angel on its head by opening our minds to the Angel Warrior, who wields sword and sinew on behalf of the innocent.  An amazing beauty in an of its own – not needing the robes of white, the images of simplistic knowledge, but with wings that have faced hardship, whose strength and metal is forged from repeated hammer of the smith.

 

Collins uses found objects to represent the endless encounters of which angel wings are formed… beautiful for their imperfections… beautiful, that for their love of us, they risk all.

 

In these paintings, created by Collins with furious love, we open our minds to Angels along our paths which are so much more beautiful by their truthful portrayal at Collins brush.