by Ian E Anderson

Artwork Description

AMIDST THE STRESSES OF LIFE - There is joy to be found

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On a resent visit to West Australia, it was my desire to find a colony of Forest Red Tailed Black Cockatoo's. This was inspired by a childhood memory and an article I had recently read that Red Tailed Black Cockatoo's might be heading toward extinction. Visiting my old boarding school, (Hale School) in Perth for some nostalgia I was surprised by a colony enjoying a meal time in the forest canopy of gum (Eucalyptus) trees above one of the car parks. What a delight. My emotions ran high, my praise was in wonder at such magnificent creatures and then directed toward thankfulness that God had favored me to be able to have my hearts desire met. The worship within my culture was toward Him for His extraordinary creative genius displayed, not only in the beauty and humor of the bird seen, but the wisdom in its diet (Eucalyptus) which is the subject of debate regarding extinction. In many cases, the unwise practices, driven by greed and unconscious knowing, that to denude the forests for our habitation and the glory of wealth without respect and replenishment of what we control is in fact a recipe for extinction of what is truly wonderful. This is from my series called "The pillars of heaven" about the joys the human spirit can find in creation with a surreal twist. In this piece of art I have decided to continue to explore and include some of the art (visual) language of indigenous people and the story telling of their dream time. My contribution here is the river of life running through the center of a playground of ideas, dots. Australian Aboriginals, New Zealand Maoris, the Pacific Islanders all have a language unique to their humanness and I in no way will deliberately choose to belittle their wonder and hunger for identity but I want to include, as a Western born white (fellah) man, the wonder of their lives into my art as has been happening in the world of music for the past few decades. I am ever indebted to the Glory of God who knows culture intimately, the destructive elements in all cultures, the wonder and joys in all cultures and the need for the human spirit to worship and have culture. We are all hungry for identity and this sense of being separated from something Divine is a reality to us all, until one meets Him. I love the vibrancy and symbolism in native arts, in particular Aboriginal dot painting. The language in Dot paintings today is recognized globally as unique and integral to Australian Aboriginal art. On the surface the dot is simply a style of Aboriginal painting, like the use of cross-hatching or stencil art used in Western art. Exploring deeper into the history of the Aboriginal dot painting a world of camouflage, secrecy and ritual is discovered. What the Aboriginal depicted in their desire to worship from culture I now use and explore the visual medium from my culture to tell the stories of what I see. I am indebted to the Great Divine for the Aboriginals wisdom in story telling and the simple use of what was at hand to make their worship visible.

Artwork Details

Medium: Painting Oil

Genre: Hyper-Realism