Earth, sea and sky are key ingredients in our landscape vocabulary. Natural elements such as these can be forgotten in our increasingly technological lives. Natural constants, however, inspire these universal images for everyone.
I think art can sometimes manifest ideas and feelings which we can't quite put into words, especially when the two are imaginatively fused, as in intuitive dream imagery. Art, in any form, provides timeless catalysts, emotional stepping stones, or seed thoughts which any mind can explore, and adapt it in its own unique individual way. Great art often has an aspect of ambiguity, as though its creator were more interested in posing questions than imposing dogma. Think of Shakespeare's so-called 'problem' plays or Donne's poetic speculations. They can free the mind and kick start the heart.
Combined factors can make art works all the richer, as intentions can work on varying inter-woven levels. Ai Weiwei made a telling adaptation of the tree of life. He built up a tree with branches from different species from all over China to represent the different parts of his country. These branches are dead. He is making an imaginative comment on the way human 'success' often implies destroying our eco-system.
Who needs 'realism?' We have cameras.
Images imbued with positive spiritual energy, like Hilma A.F. Flint's colourful abstracts, resonate peacefully in the mind's eye. Joyful energy, like that generated by Vivaldi's Four Seasons, can counter fearful energy and the aggression it releases. Art can heal and so can nature. Hospital gardens, for example, provide peaceful sources of rejuvenation, like parks, playgrounds and beautiful wild spaces. These are some of the themes inspiring an apprentice just making the tea on the building site, goggle-eyed at brilliant architects transforming plans into action, turning energy into matter.
Shapes carry ideas. Circles represent peace, spirals evolution, and wild splashes describe energy explosions - whether in fountains or flowers like fireworks. Colours are associated with emotion. Warm colours energise and cool colours relax. I usually use red, orange, pink and yellow with fresh greens for my daylight, land-based sun pictures. Nightscapes and moon paintings incorporate more blues, greens and whites.
I isolate key factors which we all cherish in nature - such as lush fields, clear beaches and open skies - hoping people can use them as jumping off points for personal reverie. Holiday pictures put together different idealised elements such as flourishing vegetation, picturesque architecture including temples, mosques, tents and bars, hotels and cafés.
Images about balance are inspired by Cornish Celtic Cross designs often adapted in three dimensions. Miniature sculptures include the Women Evolving Series. These pieces contrast solid materials such as clay and metals, with more light permeable media such as crystal and glass. Classical earth goddesses are overhung by a Buddhist bell representing pure sound. Mud transforms into music! Playing with found objects, such as electricity circuit boards can reflect our reliance on invisible energy throughout our shared environment.
Moveable wires and magnets demonstrate our potential to connect, as through this web. Childrens' toys are included in games about different realities and value systems. Similarly, dice and toy animals in What's Next? Your Move! represent our seemingly random destruction of other species.
Having painted and drawn since I was a young child in Australia and Yorkshire, I studied art at University and wrote on The Artist in 19th Century English Fiction (Colin Smythe; Barns & Noble, 1979) and Landscape Painting (Phaidon Press, 1979). These led to a new book exploring everyone's interactions with nature.
I taught art history at the University of Stirling and had an Honorary Fellowship from Tokyo National University of Arts. I have exhibited in Europe and Japan with - amongst others -shows at the Japanese Culture Centre, Brussels, the Alliance Française, Dublin, the Daiwa Foundation, London and the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Large meditative works and surreal games connect similar themes. A snail shell and a galaxy, for example, both demonstrate evolutionary spirals found throughout the natural world. Paired down pictures and adapted games help to illustrate CREATIVITY: Nature and Us.
Both this book and these pictures have been produced carefully over a twenty year period.
This collection has something for everyone. There are microcosms and macrocosms - incorporating cells, seeds, flowers, plants, trees, gardens, parks, landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes and universes. This is a complete cycle to celebrate nature.
For more information please click here to view my cv.
Green Games
Themes
A microcosmic tree on a wooden chopping board represents global deforestation in miniature.
Poetic and prosaic objects contrast. Solid stone and opaque metal are contrasted with clear glass and crystal. We too combine dense and transparent materials –such as heavy bones or transparent lenses.
A Buddhist bell over the goddesses in Women Evolving symbolises how matter can be transformed into energy. Solids can transform into vibrations, symbolised by celestial music or the harmony of the spheres.
Music represents harmony. See the harp concealed under the honeymoon symbol in What’s Real for You?
Invisible energy powers all life. Brainwaves and heart pulses are driven by electromagnetic forces. Walt Whitman called this the ‘body electric’. Invisible currents activate technological inventions- like our web.
These are illustrated on a microcosmic scale by an electrical circuit board on a down to earth breadboard making a microcosmic Energy City, or the series of circuits representing Town Planning.
How many strands of reality can we connect? ‘Real’ and ‘Surreal’ imagery can connect our waking and dreaming lives, like the images in pictures or poems, films or videos. Many objects are open to multiple interpretations. The spiralling egg cup representing childbearing at the centre of Woman could also be read, for example, perhaps more ‘spiritually’ as a central, open chakra.
Similarly, sink stoppers and wire wool in Universe: Kitchen Sink Drama can evoke outer space.
Game space provides an experimental arena. In Central Target, inspired by a dart board, a rainbow disk with moveable magnets, wires and symbols lets us centralise, play with prioritising dreams and ambitions, concentrate, focus on what matters most.
Go, the eastern game dedicated to flat land-grabbing is altered here. It can now evoke additional realms. Building blocks, bridges and cages can imply physical obstacles. Birds and fish can suggest air and sea travel; flexible realities. Brain coral, poppy heads and angels add psychic or spiritual dimensions. It all depends on your mindset, decide What’s Real for You?
Similarly, the logical, grid-like layout of the chess board has been. Now there is a holistic, circular format. This represents unity. No longer a geometric battle ground, Green Centre’s, concentric green layers surround living leaves. Leaves represent the Earth’s lungs, a chance of survival. We are all environmental artists or creators needing to put earth first, rather than short term greed.
Our ideas and feelings feed into the shared web of existence. So we have to be careful of what we concentrate on as our hearts and minds are constantly creating invisible blueprint for future life.
Experiments
Games let us play out our ideas on miniature stages, experimenting as we ourselves evolve.
Green Games are especially potent now that the world is in crisis and we have to evolve fast.
Our images of gardens, parks and paradises all reflect our relationship with the natural world.
What inspires you most in nature? Suns, moons, stars, trees, seas, flowers, mountains, rivers?
Why?
What favourite colours represent you best right now?
Why?
Explore and share your connections with nature by playing with images from ‘mysuntrees’
Express your own individual mindscape, explore your own personal ideals and emotions.
Evoke what inspires you most in the environment, illustrating your own unique life path.
Environmental links traditionally enhance health. Patients recover better with beautiful views
or images of peaceful scenery. Access to beautiful, open, wild spaces is ‘good medicine’.
Involvement in planting, nurturing and protecting plants and trees helps us create personal wellbeing and
encourage ecological awareness –both vital for our own planet’s health.
List of works
GARDENS:
Tree of Life, semiprecious stones, etc, mobile
Tree of Life, sun over ladder
Seed Thought, mobile
Roots and Branches, illustrating book and charity logo
Tree and Moon
Bird in a Tree for Mozart
Paradise garden for Poussin, miniature building bricks
Minimalist Garden for Matisse
Water Garden for Hockney, prisms, etc
Sculpture Park for Noguchi, black and white objects
Sacred Grove for Vivaldi, trees over mirror
Energy City, circuit board on bread board
PEOPLE AND ANIMALS:
Green Dance, paper and tree
Balanced Life, Celtic Cross
Family Life, crocodiles around compound
Woman, knife grinder, egg cup, battery parts, watch
Women, clay, chess, plumbing off cuts
Women Evolving, bed spring, eggs, Buddhist bell
Light Man, glass over metal
Three Life Paths, with bird, fish, animal symbols
Political Priorities? – Keep Power or Share Food?
Cat’s Dream, bird in bird feeder over mosaic
Toad in the Hole
GREEN GAMES:
Which species will we eliminate next? Animals, dice
Real Players: Birds and Insects [miniature humans]
Real Workers: Butterflies and Bees,
Flower and Bee
Sky Eye, globe within eye frame, mobile
Kitchen Sink Universe, mobile
Land and Sky
Sun
Light
Spiral
Pollen Explosion
Central Target, symbols, magnets connecting wires
Green Centre, leaves, crystals, shells, stars, etc
What’s Real for You? angels, toys, foods, wormholes
‘mysuntrees’ Nature Symbols Explore Health and Life Paths: www.bojeffaressekine.com
‘CREATIVITY: Nature and Us. Exploring Green Themes through the Arts’, Amazon, Kindle
www.lovetreescornwall.org: Creating an Educational Tree Centre