ELEMENTS

artist: Rosanne Bender
medium : Giclee Print on Fine Art Rag
hand coloured, Edition of 10
dimensions : 43 cm x 43 cm (unframed)
63cm x 63 cm (framed)
year : 2010

Unique Edition of 10 Prints

The edition of prints begins as photographs, which are digitally painted in Adobe Photoshop. The images are printed onto Fine Art Rag fine art paper using the highest quality archival inks. Each print is unique as the artist draws and paints onto each print with quality inks into the printed image. No two are the same. The artist’s hand echoes the patterns in the print and the gold, silver and bronze ink captures and reflects the light.

Elements

I am interested in the natural environment, the beauty of the earth and the intricacy of pattern and colours in nature. The camera allows me to capture the fine detail and clarity of the amazing nature that I discover while I am walking. I frame the world the way I see it. I am interested in the material and the non-material worlds and aim to show the spirit in nature. I enjoy working digitally with the photographs, bringing feeling and responding to memories of the place and working creatively to reveal more of the story of my personal experience of the moment.

I am working with the circle, creating a mandala to hold the images I photograph in nature. The circle holds the image in my artwork to bring myself and those who see the artwork to a quiet centred place within by holding our attention and focus on what is contained inside the circle. The imagery around the circle supports the image held within the circle and echoes the patterns.

I am referencing the work of Karl Jung who created a mandala every day, the Native American people who use the circle to describe and understand their world through sacred stone circles and the vibrant sand mandalas created by Tibetan monks. The symbol of the circle is ancient and and speaks of cycle, oneness, centeredness and peace.

The artwork is printed to museum quality standards on Fine Art rag paper with quality archival inks. I hand colour the print by drawing and painting into the artwork reflecting and echoing the shapes I have seen and allowing the feeling of the spirit and life force of the object to flow through my pen and brush. I draw and paint with gold and silver referencing the colours of consciousness in the spiritual of art of ancient Egypt and Tibet.

“To The Trees” speaks to me of rhythms, of flow, of being and growing, of cycles, of decay and return to the earth and of new growth. The world where insects make marks and patterns on leaves, rocks and wood. The worms eating holes in the squiggly gums that are turning silver and ageing into wisdom as they decay. Eating their way and leaving lines and curves they leave a language, like petroglyphs as if telling us a story as they make their way into the wood.

“To The Earth” connects us to the ground as the leaf with shining rain drops finds its rest after the fall from the tree. I create layers in grass, stone and leaf overlapping and merging relating to each other living in habitat together, coexisting, feeding each other, sheltering each other. The leaf plays its part even as it lets go and releases itself to the ground for renewing life to the tree as it returns itself to the ground to become earth again. The cycle, the circle, the wheel of life, ever present always going around.

“To The Fire” The fire releasing energy, burning the wood creating warmth, the centre falls out of the log and a flame of fire spirals dances skyward. Deep red hot coals burn beneath the wood as figures in shadow and red hot embers show themselves as fire dragons, mythological beings and creatures of the forest and the night.

“To The Sea” is a witness to the rhythms of the sea where the waves roll in without ceasing and wash back and forth on the shore. It speaks of the vastness of the ocean and its greatness in size and beauty. People stand and witness the colours of the sea at the time of the setting sun.