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My creative journey centers on the search for and affirmation of manifestations of universal connections between mankind and nature. In their seemingly random encounters, I seek to find something beyond the accidental, the hidden. When we are conscious about the existence of these infinite connections, we emerge from our anthropocentric view of life and move into a holistic view. In doing so, we are freed from the limitations of death. My work is about the discovery of the essential in nature and landscape. I work with handmade color from pigments and other materials I collect in locales from India to Italy and throughout the world. My work is inspired by my emotional reactions to specific event in landscapes. For a series of drawings of rainbows made in Ireland, for example, I worked with rainwater, ash and soot from burned peat, and bits of sheep’s wool caught in the wire of pasture fences. Indigenous organic materials allow me to enter into the landscape; the works become a visual record of my experience of landscape, and an intimate connection is established between nature and humanity. Like sedimentary rocks, my paintings are created with layer on layer of memory and emotion. And like metamorphic rock, each painting is morphed or altered by new connections between each stratum. Unexpected associations and epiphanies emerge, creating the whole.
Shinji Turner-Yamamoto |
photo credit: shinji turner-yamamoto