May All Beings Be Free Virginia Cohn Parkum, c. 2006 Even in its dark palette, this painting is built around an upward turn. The figure’s spine and shoulders form a rising arc, and the lifted arms carry the eye into the upper field, where the brightest, most electric marks live. Instead of reading as retreat, the pose feels like an opening—an embodied yes. Parkum keeps the face hidden, which actually strengthens the sense of universality: this is not someone’s private act, but a shared human moment of letting go. What makes the piece feel liberated is the way line behaves. Those pale, luminous strokes—white shot through with cool blue and hints of green—don’t “trap” the body; they animate it. They’re like currents or breath-lines: quick, calligraphic, and light on their feet. They skim the figure and then extend outward, suggesting a self that isn’t sealed shut but in conversation with a larger space. The lines at the top, especially, read like release—energy lifting off the body, or the mind unclenching. The reds and maroons, instead of signaling harm, can be read as vitality: heat returning to the body, blood as life, not injury. Parkum lays the red in broad, confident sweeps that give the figure weight and presence—this isn’t a disappearing person. And the surrounding dark field works less like menace than like silence: a deep, meditative ground that allows small illuminations to matter. In that kind of quiet, a single bright mark feels huge—like the moment you notice you can breathe again. With the title, the painting locks into a Buddhist register without needing literal iconography. “May all beings be free” carries the tone of metta and compassion practice—freedom not as escape from the world, but as release from the knots that cause suffering: fear, grasping, hatred, the compulsive replay of pain. In that frame, the raised arms read as a gesture of offering and blessing. It’s a bodily form of prayer that isn’t passive; it’s active goodwill, extended outward. So the uplift here isn’t cheerful decoration—it’s hard-won spaciousness. Parkum paints peace as something physical: shoulders unburdening, the chest opening, the energy line turning upward. The work lands as a benediction: joy not as denial, but as liberation—an insistence that relief is possible, and that the wish for freedom can be generous enough to include everyone. -Jonathan Flike