I want to thank Milan S. for his excellent compliment on the series and his question about ‘… what is behind the Totem?” I initially considered your question to be a literal one, as in what is physically behind the Totem. Then maybe you meant it to be about its general concept. Regardless, Both questions are answered below: the image and the concept.

The Totem is a conceptual art series that proposes a new formulation of the origins of the cosmos. It supposes that just as matter eventually emerged from the Big Bang, a timeless mind was always there, in concert with the formation.

As the universe cooled and matter was created, ‘mind’ also accreted into autonomous psychic beings. The Totem represents one such psychic being that aids in the development of the human species. It has no governing effect on the direction of the species but just keeps record of its collective memory. This then is imparted into the next generation of fetuses’ as a foundational character. I realize this is very abstract. This foundational character are archetypes that aids the species’ to move forward. Forward with its physical/emotional/ psychological development.

In some ways, this is also a ‘big bang’, but of the psyche, where psychism has always existed, even before matter. Of course, this is not a scientific theory and shouldn’t be taken as fact. It is a narrative, an allusion, It is an interesting story that allows a deeper consideration of the art and the Totem itself, essentially strengthening the aesthetic appreciation.

I won’t use the word ‘belief’ but the fact of the appreciation of the art aligns the viewers’ consideration with others that view the Totem as well. In this case, the Totem could eventually live and represent the psyche and become an autonomous psychic entity to be a repository of the human species in the universal mind-scape.

Again, this is quite abstract, I realize. It is purely a conceptual foundation. Essentially the Totem series is an experiment in the world of the paranormal, creating a system where art appreciation and paranormal activity rise and move in concert with one another.