Symbolically, these paintings represent the world of the striving human being and embody an enhanced soul state. As we contemplate these works, the soul can become like a colourful garden that we tend to and re-enliven. They seek to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind into an imaginative awakening. They embody the tenets of truth, beauty and goodness – ideals that encapsulate high human endeavour.
Symbolically, these paintings represent the world of the striving human being and embody an enhanced soul state. As we contemplate these works, the soul can become like a colourful garden that we tend to and re-enliven. They seek to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind into an imaginative awakening. They embody the tenets of truth, beauty and goodness – ideals that encapsulate high human endeavour.
Symbolically, these paintings represent the world of the striving human being and embody an enhanced soul state. As we contemplate these works, the soul can become like a colourful garden that we tend to and re-enliven. They seek to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind into an imaginative awakening. They embody the tenets of truth, beauty and goodness – ideals that encapsulate high human endeavour.
I am a contemporary New Zealand artist deeply interested in the transformative and healing power of art. I believe that this kind of art will have an ascendance, whereby it will become a kind of soul medicine to enable, revive and vivify our inner life,
to meet the existential challenges we face every day.
My artworks are essentially conduits for the viewer to contemplate and possibly experience something of their Higher Self. They have been created for the purpose of enlivening one’s inner world and soul life. These works can be read as one would read a book. By taking time to contemplate and meditate the content, imaginations, inspirations and intuitions may arise.
The Higher Self is not necessarily a commonplace term. Ontologically it has associations to Christ Consciousness, Buddha Nature and the Authentic Self. Jung called the process of achieving wholeness of being, 'individuation,' where one realises ones Higher Self. He spoke about this process as being a difficult journey through ‘the swamplands of the soul’. Interestingly a Buddhist
proverb states 'The Lotus flower blooms most beautifully from the deepest and thickest mud'. A numinous way of saying that such beauty and metamorphosis is the result of overcoming the habitual nature of our lower self and our own personal 'beasts' – as well as our own physical and existential suffering.
Q&A
You talk about your art as being 'transformative art' – what do you mean by that?
It basically means that this art – by its very nature – offers an opportunity for inner enlivenment & soul nourishment. My work cannot be experienced in a purely cognitive or conceptually-based way. Nor does it sit within the realms of fad, style or fashion. What I have created are archetypes that are timeless – aspirational motifs that are there to serve a persons inner life in a positive & transformative way.
How can people gain a better understanding of your works?
By meditating on them. They really are meditations. Each piece has a theme that can be experienced through
contemplative practice. All it requires is quiet reverence and an open mind free from judgement.
Have there been any misconceptions around your work?
One misconception about my work is that they are 'sexual'. They are not. The forms are certainly dynamic, fertile, and fecund and perhaps may even remind one of something like a reproductive organ, but they are not base or profane, carnal or erotic. They are not related to sex, rather they are related to new life.