| Having completed the last painting for the Serenity Series at the end of January, (Hangzhou Magnolia) I had a fairly good idea of an image I wanted to work with next, so I got stuck in quite quickly on a new piece in February. It would be untrue to say I have worked on it every day since then, but it has been a fairly lengthy process as I have re worked several parts of it on more than one occasion. The piece is developed from both a photographic record and a pencil sketch made on site at the Chong Shan Si Buddhist Monastery in Taiyuan, China. The painting further explores the image of a carved wooden figure I was interested by at the temple complex when I visited in August 2013.
|  Chong Shan Guardian of the South, Acrylic and Collage on Canvas, May 2015 |
The sculpture is one of the Four Heavenly Kings, huge figures that are often represented at Buddhist temples as guardians of the buildings. Zēng Zhǎng Tiānwáng (The King of the South's Chinese name) is the 'one who causes good growth of roots', which seems particularly relevant for a spring painting! He is also ruler of the winds and is associated with the colour blue, which I have tried to emphasise in the work. His symbolic weapon is a sword held in his right hand, that he uses to protect the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha as an interpretation of the laws of nature in a system designed to reduce suffering.
The concept of allowing the growth of strong roots is one I find interesting and can apply to more than one area of my life at present. It seems especially relevant to this whole series, which is certainly proving to be a 'slow burner' as I evolve my own understanding of it from slight bemusement (Why am I making these?) through questioning the value of them (is this a bit self indulgent?) and now on to recognising that there is an intrinsic value in producing work that people can simply enjoy looking at without trying to address any wider social issues. (If you're not familiar with my older interests, that statement might make more sense if you look at some of the PlaceMaking and This Place Is project work). Of course, there is always slightly more concept than that, even with work that has an obvious aesthetic appeal and I have been interested to watch these pieces pop up almost as elements of visual grammar to punctuate my own changing approaches to life. Learning the purpose of slowing down and taking a little more time over life objectives (letting strong roots form perhaps) has been a key feature of recent months for me whilst questioning our modern, Western, hell-for-leather-must-be-done-yesterday attitudes and how productive that kind of lifestyle can really be in the long term. The slower, seemingly more purposeful, Eastern attitudes I have encountered in my work and leisure travels in recent years are certainly exemplified in the Buddhist imagery I've been using.
The concept of allowing the growth of strong roots is one I find interesting and can apply to more than one area of my life at present. It seems especially relevant to this whole series, which is certainly proving to be a 'slow burner' as I evolve my own understanding of it from slight bemusement (Why am I making these?) through questioning the value of them (is this a bit self indulgent?) and now on to recognising that there is an intrinsic value in producing work that people can simply enjoy looking at without trying to address any wider social issues. (If you're not familiar with my older interests, that statement might make more sense if you look at some of the PlaceMaking and This Place Is project work). Of course, there is always slightly more concept than that, even with work that has an obvious aesthetic appeal and I have been interested to watch these pieces pop up almost as elements of visual grammar to punctuate my own changing approaches to life. Learning the purpose of slowing down and taking a little more time over life objectives (letting strong roots form perhaps) has been a key feature of recent months for me whilst questioning our modern, Western, hell-for-leather-must-be-done-yesterday attitudes and how productive that kind of lifestyle can really be in the long term. The slower, seemingly more purposeful, Eastern attitudes I have encountered in my work and leisure travels in recent years are certainly exemplified in the Buddhist imagery I've been using.
| CRITshow; May 2013 (thanks to irenasiwiakphoto.co.uk) | It seems The Guardian of the South has been sending the winds of change in other directions too and it was with surprisingly little regret that this week I also made the executive decision to call it a day for CRITgroup, the artists' networking group I have been managing since 2011. Due to changes in various practices, other creative commitments and a myriad of other 'life things', attendance had dropped off recently, and despite continued verbal expressions of interest, it became clear that the group was no longer providing the same motivation and stimulus for many. We tried changing to a bimonthly schedule but the meetings did not become better attended and I no longer felt the investment of time and energy was generating a sufficient level of return for either my, or anyone else's practice. |
In many ways, the initiative has been far more successful than I could have hoped and it feels like a genuine achievement that so many people interacted with and through the meetings. I feel we can take real pride as a group in the many genuinely productive sessions we enjoyed, as well as the high points that were the collaborative projects and the group CRITshow (pictured in the slide show above), 2 years ago in May 2013. I am also incredibly grateful on a personal level to all the speakers who gave their time to share work with us, and to everyone who contributed in other ways, be that through full engagement with a collaborative project, helping out with bits of administration and organisation, or simply providing an interesting opinion. One thing must end for another to begin however, and I'm sure we'll all stay in touch. Who knows, maybe now we've chopped out a bit of creative dead wood, our roots can grow stronger and there will be some new, hardier shoots in the not too distant future.
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