Green Man, 2002

oil on oilsketch paper
65 x 46.5 cm
Year 10, MacKillop Catholic College/Isabella Plains Campus, Canberra

Leaves rustle in the deepening twilight. The trees whisper their secret messages from branch to branch. There seems no end to the darkness of the woods, where passages of foliage echo with the laughter of Green Man. Medieval Theologians held that man possessed the intellect of angels, the reason of humankind, the intuition of animals, and the innate life force of the animal kingdom. The Green Man is a pagan figure that survived throughout the Christian expansion period, symbolising the cycles of nature and the new growth of Spring. He is also associated with the wild periods of creative genius in the lives of artists, poets, musicians and shamans. 'To be wood' in Medieval terms was to undergo a period of instability and abandon, to escape into a world apart from that of the everyday. When I paint, I enter this same place, populating the canvas with the various creatures I meet within. Green Man is an expression of my personal desire to escape into this world. It is a reflection of my creative personality and a synthesis of my human nature and my environment. Here the Green Man looks down as a guardian of the paths within the soul, leading the traveller deep into the wild wood of the subconscious…….

Headspace 3