A FALLING THROUGH / EXHIBITION

EVERYTHING I WAS, AM, AND HOPE TO BE, CONDENSED INTO 78 LINES
A BLENDING OF ALL THAT YOU ARE, INTO ALL THAT I AM
BEING LOVE
THE CYCLIC NATURE OF LIFE AS EXPRESSED BY A SUNFLOWER
THE VULNERABILITY OF NATURE IN THE HANDS OF MAN
STILLNESS IN DREAMS
A PORTRAIT IN BLUE (CAUGHT IN BETWEEN)
THE FERRYMAN
STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
A FALLING THROUGH

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

(AN ENDING)

I wondered lost, caught inside a daydream of everything and everyone I’d never known. A period of contemplation that provided the inspiration for my series ‘A Falling Through’, which came to be a 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 and represent them as form and colour on canvas. Once dry, I scrape away the surface paint leaving only trace, a shadow of the former image over which I paint again.  The process repeats, until through a symphony of choice and chance, the final image emerges.

‘A Falling Through’ places the experience of life as part of a wider journey of spiritual awareness and development. Like that of The Fools Journey of Tarot; each image reflects an aspect of that journey, for which there is no absolute beginning or end.

Finally, In the poem Little Gidding from the ‘Four Quartets’, T.S Eliot described with a masterful and unrivalled simplicity what became the central theme of the series; the circular nature of life.

We must not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time
-T.S Eliot

(A NEW BEGINNING)

EXHIBITION INFO

The exhibition took place in March 2010, in the UK. It featured 10 original paintings on canvas board, including a poem of the same name (below):

A Falling Through

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