The Human Shrine - The Gift
Commission sketches for "The Gift"
Derived from an extant figurative series of elements painted for the Nature of Multiplicity and which I had privately named the Human Shrine, I began to paint larger works featuring these enigmatic faceless primordial figures that eluded to a contextual theme through by their anonymous presence. Figures that seemed to spring from slumbering thoughts into paper, board or canvas.
"The Gift" was my first attempt at reproducing the subject matter on a larger canvas using traditional materials and methods. The cotext of the work was largely the same as representing the concept of populating a human shire like that of traditional iconography yet with loose theological or mystic legacies. Playing with a sort of humanistic sybolism. The peice was meant as a gesture of goodwill between two organisations and was commissioned in 1997 by consultant and friend (Amy Gardner) who generously offered me the opportunity of creating the work as a token of appreciation and gesture of goodwill to the incomming team that would form the new Canadian Blood Services in Ottawa.
When asked to create a work that represtent this transition and the passing-on of knowledge and responsibilities I emmidiately thought of the figures of this Human Shrine. In this montage the figures represent the trinity that form the circle of life, of support just as the hoop representing the human cell that supports life and transfers energy and motion to our common vessels.
Presently Located at the Canadian Blood Agency the work is created of traditional linen glue sizing with zinc white ground and layered in oil with wax and damar varnish.