Collective Energy

Forget Me Nots Land is Roger Allan Cleaves's created world and fictional story that is a metaverse for social dialogue, symbols, and abstract figuration told through the lens of Afrofuturism. Collective Energy, in it's physical form, is a 60" x 66" ( 152.4cm x 167.6cm) oil painting created in 2020. It has been a part of exhibitions at the Dixon Museum(2021) and is currently awaiting to be exhibited in West Palm Beach(2022). Cleaves's protagonist finds himself entering Forget Me Not Land through a portal. At the same time other characters from the created world are also spiraling through this abstract zone. They have the realization that their collective energy is powerful when united. If you look closely you will see tigers, sharks and spiders all represented in the picture plane. In FMNL the landscape is full of anthropomorphic creatures and some that resemble more traditional figurative forms. Later in the story these characters form a faction that spends some time traveling together through the landscape. In this painting Cleaves reduces some of the characters to flat shapes and other characters melt into the background of vibrant patterns. The color palette and the complexity of the patterning were designed to represent an energetic zone or field for the viewer to engage with in an uplifting way. Cleaves wanted the canvas to be a never-ending field of movement for the eye to travel. The created world features a cast of minority characters and the main figural element is the first introduction of Brooklyn, the older brother of one of the main protagonist. The NFT is 1/1 . 300 DPI 2984 x 3348 pixels.