Pattern and Decoration: Tree of Life (Dark Red)

This is another in my series of gold-leaf, decorative paintings on the Tree of Life theme inspired by Gustav Klimt. Pattern and decoration were key elements in the art nouveau canon of Klimt’s time, as well as in the Arts and Crafts Movement that preceded it. More recently the Pattern and Decoration Movement in the United States, led by decorative artists Valerie Jaudon and Joyce Kozloff, reasserted the importance of ornament in the face of its outright rejection by the mainstream modernist art world. For a long time I’ve enjoyed the meditative process of working on repetitive decorative motifs. (Sometimes, however, it can drive you a bit insane)! Of course, the spiritual and religious manifestation of pattern and decoration reached its zenith in Islamic art and architecture, whose practitioners used the craft process itself, and the geometries they were part of, as deep meditation on the nature and essence of G-d.

Anyway, this much more modest creation is for a collector in the UK who requested a dark red colour scheme. I also added a small Royal Air Force roundel as an acknowledgement of the family’s WW2 Bomber Command heritage. This painting is smaller than the previous Tree of Life, and measures 51cm x 40cm. The following photos show the process of creating it.