the art of pilgrimage
'I believe one of the most important tasks for us today is to infuse our spiritual questing with humour and joy. Without humour we lose our humility, without joy a spiritual path becomes dry with the dead hand of piousness.'
From Philip Carr-Gomm's, weblog
I started my artistic career primarily as a painter of landscapes. Landscapes that become increasingly abstracted, focusing more on the dynamics between line, form, colour, space and contrast than on actual topography. These drawings and paintings mirror my own emotional state of being. Over the years since completing my MA at Falmouth in 2003, I have become increasingly fascinated by the land as a multi-faceted mass of geology, archeology, energetic forces, pathways and songlines that echo down through the ages. In fact, everything that has been imprinted onto our landscape including mythological archetypes as well as rituals that embrace the rhythmic cycles of life and death in nature. Here in Cornwall we still celebrate traditions that mark the changing seasons in our Celtic solar festivals, such as the 'Obby 'Oss in Padstow who welcomes in the Summer at Beltane on May Day.
In the same way that writing about what I do has become part of my artistic practice, so too has the time I spend in nature evolved to include walking in it as an equally important part of that practice and the search for an aesthetic that mirrors my own spiritual journey. A pilgrimage is after all a journey away from home in search of spiritual well-being or the quest for a personal transformation of some kind. I am searching for the ultimate wilderness, both physically and spiritually, and what that means in terms of a place where art, the environment and social interaction intersect? How can a contemporary art practice be sustained in such a wild, rural context?
By engaging in the journey, not only as a mobile, objective participant but also as a subjective spectator, I endeavour to gain an understanding of that journey by engaging in it in various ways: corporally, emotionally, intellectually, instinctively and linguistically. And by 'tuning in' to my surroundings, it also seems a natural progression for me to use my understanding of the healing power of nature and the environment to work with the energetic points, meridians and chakras of the earth's body, applied via vibrations of my own footsteps and reflective thoughts. Making interpretations in the play of light over the landscape, fleeting colours, sounds, found objects, shifting shadow shapes, kinetic objects powered by breezes and chance encounters. Exploring my empathy for our living planet and pondering how that might be communicated via my artistic endeavours?
© Caro Woods, 2015
For more information, see my blog: The Artist as Pilgrim.
My current project: Terra Incognita, and the journal blog: Pilgrim on Horseback
website: www.carowoods.co.uk
'I believe one of the most important tasks for us today is to infuse our spiritual questing with humour and joy. Without humour we lose our humility, without joy a spiritual path becomes dry with the dead hand of piousness.'
From Philip Carr-Gomm's, weblog
I started my artistic career primarily as a painter of landscapes. Landscapes that become increasingly abstracted, focusing more on the dynamics between line, form, colour, space and contrast than on actual topography. These drawings and paintings mirror my own emotional state of being. Over the years since completing my MA at Falmouth in 2003, I have become increasingly fascinated by the land as a multi-faceted mass of geology, archeology, energetic forces, pathways and songlines that echo down through the ages. In fact, everything that has been imprinted onto our landscape including mythological archetypes as well as rituals that embrace the rhythmic cycles of life and death in nature. Here in Cornwall we still celebrate traditions that mark the changing seasons in our Celtic solar festivals, such as the 'Obby 'Oss in Padstow who welcomes in the Summer at Beltane on May Day.
In the same way that writing about what I do has become part of my artistic practice, so too has the time I spend in nature evolved to include walking in it as an equally important part of that practice and the search for an aesthetic that mirrors my own spiritual journey. A pilgrimage is after all a journey away from home in search of spiritual well-being or the quest for a personal transformation of some kind. I am searching for the ultimate wilderness, both physically and spiritually, and what that means in terms of a place where art, the environment and social interaction intersect? How can a contemporary art practice be sustained in such a wild, rural context?
By engaging in the journey, not only as a mobile, objective participant but also as a subjective spectator, I endeavour to gain an understanding of that journey by engaging in it in various ways: corporally, emotionally, intellectually, instinctively and linguistically. And by 'tuning in' to my surroundings, it also seems a natural progression for me to use my understanding of the healing power of nature and the environment to work with the energetic points, meridians and chakras of the earth's body, applied via vibrations of my own footsteps and reflective thoughts. Making interpretations in the play of light over the landscape, fleeting colours, sounds, found objects, shifting shadow shapes, kinetic objects powered by breezes and chance encounters. Exploring my empathy for our living planet and pondering how that might be communicated via my artistic endeavours?
© Caro Woods, 2015
For more information, see my blog: The Artist as Pilgrim.
My current project: Terra Incognita, and the journal blog: Pilgrim on Horseback
website: www.carowoods.co.uk