The Temple | ink on paper | 77 x 99.5 cm
‘The Temple’ is the first drawing of this series to be inspired from the direct experience of a specific location – the forests within the Wakayama Prefecture of Japan (November 2019). The initial intention behind this work was to pay homage to this environment as well as the Shinto devotional practice which holds kami (nature spirits) in great reverence. This intention still remains however the time during which it was created synchronistically aligned with the 2020 lockdown period – a time where collective awareness was directed towards the respiratory system of the human body as well as that of the Earth. The very essence of life, the breath, came to the fore as these two sacred vessels, through which breath moves, were reduced to ashes – an integral part of the natural cycles of life.
“Our ethic must therefore be one of belonging, an imperative made all the more urgent by the many ways that human actions are fraying, rewiring, and severing biological networks worldwide. To listen to trees, nature’s great connectors, is therefore to learn how to inhabit the relationships that give life its source, substance, and beauty.”
– David George Haskell