Current personal practice
My work is informed by my practice of Zen meditation, koan training and Zen brushwork. It comprises drawings, paintings, photographs and videos which explore the mystery, energy and transformative power of water, the life force and the process of creation.
Long contemplation of the constantly changing patterns which play on the surfaces of the streams, ponds, mill-races in my nearby valley has given me direct experience of the life-force energy of the natural world. The dazzling reflections have no mass, they are empty, made of light. Playing on the mind, setting up rhythms in the body, they have been active in my work for nearly over 10 years. It is an ongoing investigation into thealiveness and sentience of the living world, which is not separate from myself. It is not limited to a specificplace, but is accessed through such deep encounters.
These vibrations are not expressed literally, but in a stream of marks which have their own inner energy. In one process, I draw with water, pouring or splashing it onto translucent film. Over time it slides until it finds its own transparent form. I blow fine particles of coloured dust onto the tiny pools to make their outline and movement visible. The drafting film gives a soft and diffuse light in which they swim. As I bring these forms into life, it is as if they want to relate, communicate and evolve.
Sometimes they appear as energetic primordial marks. https://www.alisonchurchill.uk/#/lifeorigins/
Sometimes they are more like cells or primitive life forms with some small degree of sentience and intelligence. https://www.alisonchurchill.uk/#/life/ They can take the form of delicate 3D structures https://www.alisonchurchill.uk/#/lightforms/ or larger forms with greater urgency but quietly expressed.https://www.alisonchurchill.uk/#/messengers/ Responding to the world situation, the non-action in the face of climate breakdown, the COVID pandemic, my frustration in lockdown, these “Messengers” – wise ones, awakened ones – appeared, to support and confront. I am never sure how they will manifest next.
In all of this I sense the driving force in the universe towards increasing complexity, cooperation and intelligence -- quarks and neutrons to come together to form atoms, atoms to form molecules, molecules to form cells, then organisms and life forms. Syntropy, that opposite force to entropy, causing all matter to wake up!
Manifesto!
The words in bold below were spoken during a dialogue with Hester Reeve, Emma Cocker and Jessica Bell.. The additional words came to me subsequently and suddenly shortly after, forming a set of intentions or a manifesto.
“Creativity/art as a force”:
Like
a lightning bolt -- fierce and beautiful
the arising of morning dew -- intimate and soft
natural
an art movement inspired by syntropy rather than entropy
“Focussing not on the unknown, but on what is most alive.....”
no more random roaming in the Void!
Sensing messages from the vast, empty, full and alive spaces
Pulling down the future
working in the proximate world spaces
“A sensing instrument amongst other sensing instruments”
Artists must do the individual work to awaken as sensing instruments
and come together with others – some of whom may be doing the same work -- or not......
no longer individual self expressionsensing what needs to happen.....