Roland Carter — Sailor of the Soul
100 × 160 cm | Acrylic on Canvas

Sailor of the Soul explores navigation beyond the physical world — an inner passage through emotion, memory, isolation, and transformation.

The work considers our limited time on this planet and the human body as a temporary vessel through which consciousness experiences this realm. Within this vision, the nervous system becomes the Tree of Knowledge, carrying perception, memory, and awareness, while the vascular system becomes the Tree of Life, sustaining the physical vessel and its passage through existence.

Through layered, expressive mark-making and a dynamic sense of movement, Carter creates an abstract landscape suspended between chaos and calm, the corporeal and the spiritual. Forms and gestures suggest interconnected systems, currents, pathways, and forces — an internal cartography in which body, consciousness, and spirit become inseparable.

At the centre of this journey is the Sailor of the Soul: a symbolic guardian and navigator, watching over our safe passage into and out of the realm and dimension we call Earth. The sailor represents the instinctive force that continues to guide us when certainty disappears — navigating by memory, intuition, light, and hope.

Tension and release, turbulence and stillness coexist across the canvas, reflecting both the storms of human experience and the quiet persistence of the soul. The work ultimately becomes a meditation on mortality, consciousness, transformation, and passage: the body as vessel, life as voyage, and the soul as the eternal traveller.

Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 100 × 160 cm
Artist: Roland Carter
Status: Sold
Collection: Private Collection, Tokyo, Japan

Made in Groningen