More from The Four Seasons Show

Claire Bonenfant with Portal

Found objects ( a table) and acrylic

30 x 27 inches

Claire Bonenfant © 2019

There is a great variety of work on display at The Four Seasons
in Climate Crisis show on view now until the end of the
month at the Heliconian Club at 35 Hazelton avenue.

An artist I'd like to talk about tonight is Claire Bonenfant shown
here with her painting The Portal, painted on a small table, and using
the table legs, as the legs of the fox which encircles the elements.

The painting is absolutely beautiful.  I recommend that you go and see
it.  Claire says, "Every being which makes its home on Earth is also a member
of the Greater Whole, kept alive, as part of a single integrated organism, through
the beating of one heart."

The portal at the center of the painting made up of two seeds is a vision
into the universe beyond.  It was emphasized over and over again in
this exhibition that by seeing ourselves (humans) as separate from the
whole of nature, only catastrophe can result.  And that is happening.  When
we realize that we are the fox, the morning glories, the water, the fish in
this magnificent piece, we understand that we must protect the beauty
around us, and care for it as if it is our own child, or mother, or ourselves.
Nature on this planet was designed to be integrated and we have lost sight
of that leading to the climate change crisis we are facing.

Claire says it beautifully, about Portal, "we are all present: biome, fungi,
insect, fish, fowl, mammal, earth, rock, water, wood, and vegetation, with
fire and metal implied in the stars and planets. The large seed is a symbol for
the source from which all life germinates."

I love both the painting, and Claire's wonderful integration of beauty and
symbolism in a spiritually rich whole.

Have a caring about your world day.