The Cycle of the Trees of Life

10 Oct 2003 in Highland, Visual Arts & Crafts

Jean Noble
The Cycle of the Trees of Life
Inverness Museum and Art Gallery
8-22 October 2003

MY WORK HAS always been a mixture of realism and imagination. Sometimes, I concentrate on painting the rhythms of growth in gnarled trees and their relationship to the changing colours in the Highland landscape. In other paintings, the images drawn from trees reflect spiritual beliefs.

Recently, I have become fascinated to find how shapes and patterns have amazing similarities to others on a totally different scale – the branching pattern of the boughs of a tree is found again on the twigs, on the veins of the leaf, on the veins of a human, in the river delta, in lightning, and so on. These all appear in the trees of life paintings.

I have often used different scales in the same painting. To an extent this would happen in a perspective drawing – things are made smaller as they recede, to give an illusion of depth – but that is not what is happening in the trees of life. Here, I exaggerate or diminish the size of things as I please, in order to focus the attention on the beauty of the patterns and structures in nature.

In 1998, I became aware of the Celtic Tree alphabet and old Celtic calendar which linked a tree to each of the lunar months. I have accepted and expanded these themes by incorporating into each painting human foliate faces from conception to death, biological studies of tree forms and Celtic designs. So, the Cycle of the Trees of Life comprise an amalgam of different myths integrated with my own selection of biological images to show a cycle of birth, life, death and renewal.

Above all, the Cycle of the Trees of Life are paintings of mystery and imagination. I hope that they are intriguing to look at because of the subtle colour, the wealth of pattern, and the way one shape changes into another. The panels visually affirm my deep felt belief that there is a beauty and oneness within the universe, and that there is a universality of patterns which repeat themselves on different scales with infinite variety.

In January 2000, I was interviewed as a local artist on BBC Songs of Praise. For this, I wrote a short prayer. Although it wasn’t used on the programme, I have a copy on my studio wall. I reflect on it daily as it has inspired me during the drawing and painting of the Cycle of the trees of life.

Lord God, Creator of the Universe, Let my eyes always be open to the beauty of the colours and the complexity of the patterns in the world around us. Amen