Pen & Ink – Imogen L Clarke

GAIA SERIES | THE GREAT MUSIC

We cannot step outside life’s songs. This music made us; it is our nature.”

– David George Haskell

The GAIA Series is an unfolding body of larger works, each taking several months to create, that engage with a blend of cosmogenic and ecological themes.

Due to the length of time that these pieces take to create the originals are currently held by the artist and a limited edition of archival prints are available to purchase online.

“Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

‘Opening Prayer’ is a weaving of song; the warps and wefts of vibrational intention. There is an auditory aspect to all form as all form is essentially energetic vibration.

The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.

– excerpt from ‘The Bell and the Blackbird’ by David Whyte

‘Call to Prayer’ is where old worlds and new worlds meet amidst a swirling entanglement of movement. Life is being summoned, attendance is required. All kingdoms are connected. We are moving through this planetary transition as a singular dancing mass of consciousness.

The Temple | ink on paper | 77 x 99.5 cm

“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

‘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 Amazon rainforest). 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.

The Prayer | ink on paper | 100 x 72 cm

Today,
The sea has its own religion,
It is as blue
As an acori bead
I rubbed in my hand.

I think
Of swimming out
for miles
and miles in prayer.

I think
Of never struggling back
In doubt.

As though
In a world like this
Love starts over and over again…

— Sunday by Primus St. John

Within the surrender of prayer we are poised to fall, just as we are poised to be caught, by the incoming swell of something unknown, something truly magnificent.

Mandalas

The word ‘mandala’ comes from the Sanskrit word ‘mandalam’, which means circle. In Hinduism and Buddhism these circular geometric artworks are often used as meditation aids or to depict an aspect of the higher realms or greater cosmic patterns.

The mandalas that I create carry the intention of capturing the essence of certain animals, plants, and energy points.