ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Having studied traditional Indo-Islamic miniature art, I have continued to work in this technique as a meditative practice and aid to focus on developing a more interior world;
In exploring the relationship between ancient images, symbols, and their influences within structures of cultural and visual connectedness, I have developed a fascination in the sacredness of belief and myths.
In the magic within ancient sacred patterns and the connection of ritual to forces in the natural world; these elements all form part of a personal mythology.
Imagery allows a navigation between past and present, between creation, imagining and interpreting the liminal spaces between seen and unseen.
The visual languages of painting combined with the intimate nature of Indian miniatures contrives to invite viewers to a closer study in space, one of deeper contemplation, opening to a more metaphysical world.
In travel, the journey is one of inward-leaning conversations; exploring ancient temples and ruined palaces, experiences and visions inspire, and are remembered again in painted translation. Many key elements are isolated, enhanced and developed in that remembering.
In returning and revisiting India and my childhood over the years, I find opportunities to further examine the converging of these influences to the present, and with each revisiting more is revealed.
Growing up as a woman in a much different culture, in a time and space that no longer exists, remnants of which I will of course always carry within; I see contemporary cultures as a natural synthesizing and absorbing, the overlapping of past and present; the flowing of distances and nearness.
Through travel and immersion in these cultures, with their fascinating narratives; wonderful experiences are retained and reworked. Within this time-space continuum, enhanced information fluidly grows and immerses.
Traditions, cultures and identity evolve continuously into newer relevantly adapted versions; absorbing, borderless, beyond peoples places and ownership; a struggle for identity and placement bridging the internal and external. A contemporary Silk Route of experiences, both in memory and real time, none less authentic.
Mystical beings of one culture may or may not, when transported, be displaced or relevantly fit within another, yet our imagined worlds hold no boundaries. Speaking through metaphors that also profoundly embody in their symbolism vestiges and patterns that might again become relevant to a wider context. An absence of human form enhances the focus on a narrative quality, yet working within the descriptive nature of the miniature tradition, creating again an iconographic sense of the stylized imagery.
Key elements of nature’s energy focus and interact as isolated images moving together; night skies in water, elements of earth in air, an internal compass within and through ancestral forms in a continuum of internal dialogue, and creating a subtle integrative and symbolic feel to identify, including concepts of migration, displacement and heritage, embodying the gone before.
Rich symbols are woven into the art,
telling this tale of an identity,
viewed through a unique cross-cultural lens.
“As a painter I am intrigued by mystery and colour, I see this as a passionate language.”
- Melanie Francis
Rhona J Emmerson Jégun Mid - Pyrenees France