Artist Statement June 2011
World as Lover
‘World as Lover’ is a new body of work which reflects and explores my own personal philosophical shift into that of Deep Ecology.
For me layers of haze have been removed to reveal what I’ve always intrinsically known:
‘that all is one and interconnected……that all exists in relationship to the whole’.
The philosopher/mathematician G.W. Leibniz in 1670, stated “Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another”
It is my view that humans do not exist independently as separate or superior beings to the whole…..we all have equal right to be here; the plants, the animals, fungi, insects, the soil, the mountains etc
In fact it is our dominant “anthropocentric” view combined with an unquenchable thirst for economic growth that is currently killing the planet and its life forms at an ever increasingly accelerated rate.
As the human race has become more “advanced” and “civilized”, so has it become more alienated from its source, its roots, its connection to the mother Earth.
In the same process as we are killing whole species, cultures, poisoning the air, rivers, sea, bulldozing rain forests, filling in our wetlands etc so to are we slowly killing ourselves both spiritually and materially.
In my latest work I want to evoke the life forces, hidden Earth Spirits in the landscape. I want to listen to the Earth, feel the Earth,and make use of all my senses to examine all my connections, as my process for art making. I want to explore the spiritual connection of what it means to be part of this magnificent functioning ecosystem.
I also hope that through my work others may look beyond the shallow destructive economic growth rhetoric to a future based on ecological sustainability. I hope others use their life force energy to fuel their own enquiries to find a deeper connection with the Earth and all its wonderful life forms.
“World as Lover” comes from the title of the book “World as Lover: World as Self” written by Joanna Macy, Parallax Press 1991.
