Artist's Statement

Throughout history human beings have tried to understand their environment, their place on earth and in the cosmos. Philosophers, mystics, shamans and artists have devoted their lives to this quest and the search continues. Science has now proven that many ancestral beliefs are based on scientific realities. We live in an Eco-system where everything is connected. Humans, animals, plants, earth, sky, universe are interdependent systems. These artworks are a journey into the heart of these interdependent systems, into the heart of matter. They are a search for a luminous and energetic center, a point of focus to help us better center ourselves.

  In exploring different techniques and materials, this search has led me down a non-linear path beginning with sculpture, bas relief, painting and full circle back to sculpture and painting. Following an invisible spiral, a thread of thematic continuity, which has never faltered, but has continually been refined, several recurring stories take shape.

  Themes such as earth’s vital energy and the sky/earth connection, the idea that the barriers between humans and the universe are illusory, shamanism which encourages communion with nature, the archetypal home stripped of all superfluous attributes and illuminated from within, meditation, a spiritual quest and the experience of communion with a universal creative force or cosmic energy, are expressed using various techniques.

  The work now continues to evolve towards a sparer more purified aesthetic, translated by the use of natural materials and organic shapes, and visually aligned with « Land Art ». Echoing the profound aliveness of a tree, a star, a crystal, these latest works embody by their very materiality, a link between macrocosm and microcosm.

  Beyond their aesthetic radiance, they can become points of focus to help us experience a state of non-duality with nature, our profound connection with the universe.

- Daria Steketee