Elizabeth Halbert
Artist's statement
I was born in Cunderdin, Western Australia into the spacious, treeless plains of the wheatbelt. Nature was always close; the quality of the seasons could make or break a family's existence. Floods, droughts, fires and storms. Gentle breezes, willy willys, burning hot sun and long flashes of lightning cracking across the sky. The ever present animals and their births and deaths, the mustering of sheep and cattle, are but a few of the imprints taken from my formative years as a farmers daughter. This is also what informed my passion and affiliation with the nature of life.
The rose paintings began 6 years ago. I was already painting flowers, when it came to the rose I was captivated. I was drawn into the breadth and depth of its beauty. Another quality of the rose is it's thorns, which give it an edge, a hint of possible danger if not handled correctly. Due to my mother' s love of flowers as a young child I was surrounded by them; she was particularly fond of roses. So the rose has long existed in the recesses of my psyche.
I then found that the rose became a thread from which I wove content and Composition. It also proved a most wonderful metaphor, Rose a potent symbol of love, an anagram for Eros, The God of Love. The use is to the west, as the lotus is to the east, otherwise put the transformation of unconscious into conscious action. The carnal nature sublimated in to pure love and it is symbol of a woman's love, of earthly passion and of divine grace.
The rose is, as perhaps is ever flower, glorious mandala. Such form emanates a metaphysical unity. By looking into this form it is possible to contemplate the pure, formal order which springs from incomprehensible oneness.