My first solo Exhibition was held at The Civic Hall in Bedworth in March 2010. It featured 10 paintings created over the previous year, along with a poem titled ‘A Falling Through’. Thank you to all that attended, and for all the positive comments I have received as a result.
EVERYTHING I WAS, AM & HOPE TO BE, CONDENSED INTO 78 LINES, 2010
THE VULNERABILITY OF NATURE IN THE HANDS OF MAN, 2010
A FALLING THROUGH, 2010
BEING LOVE, 2010
STILLNESS IN DREAMS, 2010
STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, 2010
A PORTRAIT IN BLUE (CAUGHT IN BETWEEN), 2010
THE CYCLIC NATURE OF LIFE, AS EXPRESSED BY A SUNFLOWER, 2010
A BLENDING OF ALL THAT YOU ARE, WITH ALL THAT I AM, 2010
THE FERRYMAN, 2010
A FALLING THROUGH – ARTIST & EXHIBITION STATEMENT
(AN END)
I wondered lost, caught inside a daydream of everything and everyone I’d never known. This prolonged period of contemplation provided the inspiration for my series ‘A Falling Through’ which came to be a succinct distillation of my ideas around nature, humanity, life & ultimately loss.
I start by deconstructing a vision, taking it apart and putting it back together in my mind; like an old jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t quite fit. I take each fragment, each associated nuance of emotion and represent them in colour and form on canvas. Once dry, I remove the surface paint, leaving only a trace or shadow of the former image over which I paint again, repeating the process until through a symphony of creative choice and chance, I form an image that captures the emotion and feeling of the original vision. This iterative process of translating a constructed memory and its encoding into a comprehensible visual form, often changes the memory itself. Each work in this series has been refined in this manner over the period of more than a year.
‘A Falling Through’ places our experience of life as a part of a wider journey of spirituality and liberation from the physicality of the body and individuality of identity. As an enquiry into man’s spiritual awareness and development, like that of ‘the fools journey’ in the tarot, each image presents a moment of that journey, and asks; where are we truly heading?
T.S Eliot, one of my favourite poets, described with a masterful and unrivalled simplicity what became the central theme of my series: life’s journey.
“We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.” T.S Eliot
My series can be considered as a visual contemplation on the quote above taken from ‘The Four Quartets’, which I’ve looked at and pondered upon frequently over the last 10 years.
(A NEW BEGINNING)
A FALLING THROUGH – POETRY
By RIVER HUNT
——————————————
Dust does settle upon weary hearts
From birth to death again we start
Fade to black and back to white
Drown in sorrow this day I might!
Echoes of a love so true
Nature’s child framed in blue
Even shadows mourn their loss
Stillness of a heart that’s crossed.
Fate had played its hand so cruel
Through the eyes of a dying fool?
Broken wing but you still soar
In my dreams forever more.
Oh how I yearn for your old song
Hope’s brave anthem, despite our wrongs,
Now in silence you are laid to rest
May this earth be your final nest.
And so we hold hands and pray
As petals fall where you lay
Freedom once danced in you
Now we wander lost, it’s true.
Sleep in peace now you’ve left
For this circle celebrates life, not death!
And know I’ve learned this from you,
Life is but a falling through.