‘The Sage Forest’, or in other words ‘The Healing Forest’, is an artwork that developed as a result of a personal journey I was going through. After a traumatic time in my life, I was drawn to paint with the colour green and work with plants as my main subject matter. Sage green in particular, is known for its healing properties.
As an Artist, it is essential that you are growing in your visual expressions and are continually challenging yourself to move into new creative spheres. There are periods in your artistic career where you may find yourself reworking and re-exploring the same subject matter for quite some time. And then there are the times when a whole new vision opens up. I would go as far as to say that this can be a kind of spiritual experience, as creative ideas are planted into your dreams. You wake up, ready and excited to paint! Once painting, the initial ideas take on a life of their own, and in doing so, the artwork emerges. There are risks involved, and you find yourself entering new territories. But the key is to let go, be free and be confident that the years of painting and skills developed will carry you along the way. As the Creator creates, I have the freedom to create, and this opportunity is gratefully embraced. Working at a high speed, you notice all the details, the way the paint reacts to the canvas surface, the effects that adding water has, the way pencil marks interact with wet ink …
After some high-energy moments, you step back and take a look at what has been created.
It’s then that you pause and take time to consider. Does this combination of marks and the colour palette take me back to the source of my inspiration? The times that I’ve spent walking through the rainforest. The sense of anticipation as I wondered what visual surprise was waiting for me around the next corner. A wide open expanse, a still lake reflecting gigantic old trees. There’s a kind of awe that is sensed, knowing these green beauties have been here long before you even existed. Just walking through these green spaces, you feel rejuvenated & healed. You come out of the forest knowing that the colour green holds an energy within it. Green is the symbolic colour for hope, new life, rejuvenation, restoration, healing, health, vigour & flourishing.
Interior designers have always loved to ‘bring the outdoors in'. In the same way, I love the idea of bringing colour stories into a living space. As the fresh life of green enters the space, it is my hope that the viewer entering the space feels rejuvenated, healed and hopeful as they take a visual walk through ‘The Sage Forest’.
The size of this piece is 165cm high, and when all three panels are placed together, it expands to almost 3 metres across. It is hard to capture in a photograph and is therefore best experienced in person. If you let it, it will take you on a visual journey of your own. As a semi-abstract piece, each viewer sees the artwork in their own unique way. An area of paint that has been sprayed down with water and then blurred out with a brush still looks visually wet. For one viewer, this was her waterfall. From a distance, and viewed as a whole, there is an impact created by the sheer size. Come closer, and the experience changes as textures and marks are visually explored. As with most of my artwork, ‘The Sage Forest’ is a mixed media piece. It is made up of silk-screen printed layers, which were originally created from photographs that I took. It contains hand painting and large brush strokes. Pencil drawings & scribbled marks, metallic foils and velvet textures have also been added to the surface. And finally, characteristic of my artworks, there are layers of fabric – Chinese silk, Indian saris and Indonesian batik.
“The Sage Forest’, has moved me into a new direction, but at the same time, I feel that these new colour series are still recognisable as my personal artistic style.
I’m looking forward to taking you on this visual colour journey.
