Painted between 2009 and 2010, The Golden Trees were a new direction for me after finishing The First Wave series and going through all the showings and exhibitions. I wanted to do a series based on a story, so after sitting down and writing How the Earth Became a Mother, a creation myth, I went on to paint the images of the Golden Trees. These were the resulting paintings.
The Golden Trees was displayed in exhibit during March and April 2010 at Chambre Separee in Stockholm, Sweden and in March and April 2011 in Lisbon, Portugal for a massive art&music live exhibition at the LX Factory in Lisbon entitled: the XL experience @ the XL factory.
- March/April 2010: Chambre Separee, Stockholm, Sweden
- March/April 2011: LX Factory, Lisbon, Portugal
The Golden Trees: the Inside Story
For a long time I had been entertaining the idea of one day working with the whole imagery and concepts related to the Golden Tree. What appealed to me the most is the prevailing notion incurring in so many myths, stories and spiritual philosophies, (or at least in my interpretation of them), that the tree, with its roots firmly grasping the dark depths of the earth, and arms forever yearning and reaching out into the light, is symbolic of an internal human condition.
It could also be interpreted as a metaphor for our dual condition as sentient beings, drinking from both dark and light, in a balancing act of experience, between the cold, concrete material reality and the light and elusive spiritual one.
Without delving too deeply into this endless potential of possible relations, I just wanted to outline part of what the Golden Trees symbolizes to me, because this is the inside story behind this series, and this is the notion that, above all, colours and permeates all paintings in it.
And here, besides the intent of each action, there is also the context during which the action has taken place. What I mean is this: Regardless what symbolism the intellect has chosen as a vehicle through which to display itself, the concurrent emotional experiences or baggage is what truly comes through as the invisible soul of what is conveyed. To make it clearer, it is as if the greater quality of melody; its emotional impact arose in greater part not from its face-value, or obvious technical expression, but from the imprinted energy and characteristic organic details that lie behind.
And here the Gold comes into play. In many ways, Gold symbolizes the Sun on Earth, here serving as a dual metaphor for its fertilizing properties; light that brings life, and its spiritual properties; light that dispels darkness. Therefore when Owl-Man, The God-Head or Elemental Spirit of the Owl, comes down to Earth and rests on a tree, then that tree becomes Golden or bathed in Golden light.
Consciously, I have decided to omit the Owl from this series and focus solely on the trees, for therein lie enough dimensions and avenues for exploration. Each thing or entity alone can be source for a myriad of extrapolations and interpretations of form, content and meaning.
The Golden Trees: the Underlying Flair
To have intricacy in simplicity; segmented areas with the least possible gradation. Avoiding blurring colours without distinct divisions; wearing down forms to their root shapes, without hiding meaning, or concealing layers.
Focusing on that which catches the eye, the background becomes blurred and abstract.
We can only give our full attention to one thing at one time, otherwise we are divided, and still sometimes the object of our focus shows its other face; that of the world without science, bound only by the depths of our imagination; limited only by a cage of our doing.
Emulating tendencies from past ages, there is a concerted effort here to avoid elaborate perspective work or even shade and gradation to enable depth to rise in a different way; from the imagination of the observer.
As in the series: The First Wave, there is an attempt to break shapes down to some representational essential form, simplifying detail, synthesizing and re-moulding a new image from it, much like one would do with a logo or symbol.
In fact the work is in reality building up from symbols of the represented forms, adding new layers and ‘re-clothing’ the unit after having stripped it down from its obvious every-day realistic shape.
Drawing the curtain of the apparent world and painting the world behind the scenes would be a good motto to this series, and so would the concept of dreaming trees, but in the very end after all that process of elaboration of what I wanted to do; what I wanted to reference, and where I wanted to go with all this; all the planning and programming, I left all of it behind to be just an influencing and limiting subconscious agreement, and the motivation came solely from on source: painting pretty pictures that my baby daughter would like.
As I progressed in each painting I would ask her if she liked it. If she said that she did, I would continue; if she didn’t I would drop it altogether and start a new one. The underlying flair here is that small children are pure in their approach; their personal judgement isn’t tainted by social judgement and their response is as honest as may be.
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————–The Golden Trees————–
Loved The Golden Trees but I want to visit other Visual Arts or go back to the Home Page
