The archetypal motif of man and beast reappears throughout art history and in many different cultures. The human/animal bond is deep and instinctive – we are interdependent for survival and companionship. Studies have shown definite physiological health benefits may result from pet ownership. Yet we have a tendency to anthropomorphise our pets – to project onto them our own way of seeing, and being, in the world. Art may, ‘… capture the truth of things’ (Sakendo in a preface to work by Hokasai) and this truth shows the ‘otherness’ of animals – that they look out at the world with a distinct, unique and separate perspective.

Extract: Alice said softly: ‘He put his soul there. You can see the tracks of it. Bare and brisk in the soft slow sand. He put his soul there. But they couldn’t see it and they didn’t care.’ She lost herself in grief and remembrance. She wallowed in loss and saw nothing else. She was blind to the reality of the Void, what it offered her and what it took from her. Her grief was a turbulent blue gesture. It was an addition in spite of her. It crashed and splashed about her. It had a rhythm and a pattern peculiar to itself.

She arises fresh from sleep - fair, bright and brilliant. Though solitary by nature she is a kind and gracious friend. She can taste a scent on the breeze and unlock its secrets. There are eyes everywhere and they are all on her.

Autumn suggests change and the passing of time. Autumn leaves fade and the colours blur at the edges. Colour is expressive of meaning, and expression is the end result of thought. It’s about forming images and ideas in the mind and getting lost within the imagining. Art can find beauty in decay, and poetry in suffering. Art is both a protest and a dream.

Artists have a history of responding to the issues of their time. Perhaps this is inevitable. Seeing something in all its complexity and detail forces a confrontation with reality. Goya responded to his horror of war with graphic images. Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ was a visceral response to the devastation of war and it’s effect on innocents. When confronted by the Nazi’s demand to know if he had painted the picture, he reportedly countered, ‘No, you did.’ Many artists of the present time respond, with increasing unease, to the state of the environment. We have an innate and spiritual need to be connected to nature. Our interconnectedness with nature informs our choice of subject matter when this relationship is threatened. Subject matter includes our responsibility to sustainable resource management and minimising our impact on the environment. If beauty should be, ‘convulsive’ as the surrealists believed, artists are using this paroxysm as a metaphor for the state of the planet. Art acts as a form of sign language and the signs suggest an increasing unease and frustration with the current situation.

Balance and unity are important elements to consider in an artwork. Balance may create a sense of formality, or informality, as required by the subject matter. Radial balance establishes symmetry around a central point, such as a spiral. Unity within a work of art relates to the wholeness achieved through effective use of all parts. The choices are essentially instinctive. When the elements and principles of design are organised harmoniously there is unity and balance.

Cicada’s crisp chant shatters the silence yet
Takes small part in the running of thought’s dark stream.
Which flows past blindly as consciousness bends double
And finds no peace in chatter, or in things.
These merely distract from the fractured self
Struggling to find meaning, and to disclose
The sad foetal burden; it is as though
To fight some destiny – for thoughts aloud
Become a thing of power, that may dawn
Upon a hidden ground, filled with silent men.

Creating a work of art can be like trying to form an alternative universe, albeit in a small way and with limited materials. It has something to do with the artist’s unfolding consciousness and the attempt to communicate the imagery of the spirit. With luck something worthwhile struggles free. The critic Ludwig Hevesi described Klimt’s work Philosophy as, ‘… a piece of the universe’ and ‘… perpetually flowing life, ceaselessly coagulating into shapes.’ To render pictorially something that reveals itself to the imagination as image without explanation can be intimidating. That’s not to say that creating something isn’t fun, it is, intensely so. But the blank beginning is frightening and the multitude of alternatives also. Once captured the image could have many alternative reasons and explanations for being.

Extract: It is as they that the shimmer exists. Not as I. They cannot reproduce without the other. But the other does not come to the ice and snow. Not anymore. So the shimmer must wait in the ice and snow. The shimmer must wait.
Until now.
This other are weak and do not last. Still, it is enough to become more.
Then the shimmer must wait in the ice and snow. The shimmer must wait.
It is enough.

Western art since the Renaissance values the development of a unique way of seeing. This is something that evolves naturally over time. Awareness leads to more awareness. Spiritual connectedness in art encourages empathy and insight. By discovering the elements both essential and inherent to the subject each composition develops its own independent life and voice. Simplicity sometimes increases the strength of expression. There are associations, and consequences, with each aesthetic decision.