Women of the Forest
2018 - 2022
 
 WOMEN OF THE FOREST STATEMENT: JAMES WHITINGTON
 

On a visit to Tasmania, I was invited to a logger's keg drinking party in a timber town. Inside the house was a painting of a naked woman sitting in a tree. It expressed the idea that by cutting the tree down, the woman would be conquered. It was a logger's inspiration.

The series of paintings “Women of the Forest” is my response to this experience. I have made an attempt to integrate the female form with the trees, their limbs juxtaposed and aligned with the shape of the tree’s limbs - belonging to the tree.

The titles of some of the works evoke the ancient goddess myths of pre-industrial Europe. Goddesses such as Cybele, Rhea and Demeter were seen as protectors of nature and forest.
Any reference to the sacredness of forest was deposed by industrialisation.

Behind this work is a biocentric view that values forest and regrets the demise of its sacred alignment to the female figure.