“Lost and Found in Unknown Pain” and “My Life Without Me”
By Roscoe Stark
Holotropic Breathwork revealed to me something totally new about the nature of the self and the psyche’s capacity for transformation. It made clear that there is an infinite depth of learning available within the self, beneath many layers of armor and suffering—realizations that can’t be reached through rational inquiry alone.
What I found most striking wasn’t just the emotional intensity it can produce, but how it destabilizes the structures of belief that we unconsciously rely on. It exposes how much of our inner world is scaffolded by assumptions we mistake for truth. In doing so, it doesn’t offer easy answers, but instead opens a space where meaning becomes more fluid, personal, and alive.
It’s not about accessing some universal narrative—it’s about disassembling the one we didn’t even realize we were living inside.
More than that, breathwork opened up an infinite universe of creative potentiality in my personal artwork and in my ongoing investigations into the creative possibilities of knowing myself and the mystical world I am blessed to live in each and every day.
Lost & Found in Unknown Pain
By Roscoe Stark
18 ½ in. x 24 ½ in.—modeling paste and oil paint on MDF panel
Completed June 1, 2025
During a breathwork session, I entered an altered state and was shown a paradox—an intense, dynamic red sphere. At first, it was revealed to me as a symbol of my pain, but then I recognized it also represented the immense love I have to give. It was the engine of my passion. I realized that my deep connection to passion comes from my sensitivity—my capacity to feel so profoundly. This depth of feeling carries consequences, but also beautiful rewards. This painting is about that process: where my pain and my love meet, and what I do with the feelings that arise. It tells the story of how I’ve felt my whole life—surrounded by beauty, yet separated from it by pain, and at the same time, overflowing with love I long to give.
‘My Life Without Me’
By Roscoe Stärk
12 in. × 22 in.— modeling paste and oil paint on MDF panel
Completed May 29, 2025
From the dark red depths of daydreams, I’ve worked with my friend and savior—art—to bring peace to myself and those around me. This ghostly world, gifted to my hands, represents my story.
If my spirit were stripped away, what would remain? The love, the pain, the loss, the gain—my lived experience and the echo of those who came before me, the ones who remain unnamed.
This work is not meant to explain, but to invite. It is designed to inspire self-reflection beyond the conventional mirror.
