Where Beauty Lies...
One of my
bodies of work explores the concept of Paradise as something sought
after by modern society. My search centres on gardens--as near as
our own backyard and as far away as other continents or the imaginary
garden in our consciousness. It has been stated that each garden
reflects our longing for spiritual peace--a tie with our primeordal
beginnings. It is in the beauty of nature where I find this
spiritual peace from a homemade garden to a formal garden, from a
tree to the vastness of Grand Canyon, from a rocky coast line to the
calmness of a man made pond. “The artist knows that even though he
has created something beautiful, it can be destroyed. His real and
innermost satisfaction is not in the object, but in the subject; that
thing within him that penetrates the mystic splendor of Beauty
itself” (Ernest Holmes pg 39).
When I do my walk about in my garden I am in that “world for the moment” and no place else and so like O’Keeffe I want to give that feeling to others. My floral paintings are a breathtaking splendor of pure colours in the abstract form of flowers created to capture richly patterned light. This “living canvas” is very important today living in a society with information overload, one needs to escape to beauty and journey into nature to return to our centre the primordial garden/being. As Keats puts it “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
My paintings lean towards capturing strong contrast between lights and darks and complimentary colours with abandonment to patterns in nature which become a breathtaking splendor of pure colours in the abstract form of flowers.
When I do my walk about in my garden I am in that “world for the moment” and no place else and so like O’Keeffe I want to give that feeling to others. My floral paintings are a breathtaking splendor of pure colours in the abstract form of flowers created to capture richly patterned light. This “living canvas” is very important today living in a society with information overload, one needs to escape to beauty and journey into nature to return to our centre the primordial garden/being. As Keats puts it “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
My paintings lean towards capturing strong contrast between lights and darks and complimentary colours with abandonment to patterns in nature which become a breathtaking splendor of pure colours in the abstract form of flowers.