This series was conceived after several years of hesitation, procrastination and finally a breakthrough towards an essay to retrace the essence of my roots. Early in my work I found myself indebted to the oriental art of the brushstroke in its use in calligraphy, and later in an appreciation of painting, particularly through glimpses of work by Shih Tao (1641 - after 1710), spiritual inheritor of the oriental oeuvre during the Tsing Dynasty. No longer bound by mimesis, I have worked towards a synthesis of the image beyond the pictorial dimension whilst grasping firmly to my roots. In this sequence of images; the foundation of the image itself lies on the fragile surface of water. The use of water, in its cleansing and purifying dimensions are suspended here, in order to orientate the viewer towards a sense of what is beyond his experience: thus the appearance of a dark 'void' is purposeful yet paradoxical. What cannot be seen in the image is the very matrix on which the life of leaves is held in focus. Water too, brings into relationship all that is borne in spatial reflection around the fallen leaves when the beholder traces the hidden link.

'Imago' and 'meditatio': two distinctly different etymological roots of the term 'reflection'. Foremost, consider the visual link. The fleeting reflections of the branches, concretised in this series, trace back towards the immediate source from which leaves derive. The prefiguration of the heavens, in a wisp of tonal surprise, is the heliotropism where hope then lies. Within the image then, exists not merely the biological ecosystem, but its transcendence. Why hope? Yet while fallen leaves land in seemingly haphazard array, there is a suspension of any allusion to occidental reductionism: chance is the lowest common denominator. This series traces an order - a hidden order in this world which can be grasped in experience, just as in this panel, detail is given through the margins of experience and not as a centripetal focus. Hence in terms of composition, the suspension of centripetal organisation is purposeful and not aleatory with nature's full rhythm remaining veiled and revealed in alternating part. Thus from 'imago', that which is visually apparent or reflected - towards 'meditatio' - a contemplative reflection which traces an internal relationship with that of nature.

Swedenborg, an early influence in my own development expresses a view of nature in terms of a theory of "correspondence". Later, Baudelaire was to synthesise this concept into "Les Fleurs du Mal". Through symbolism and allegory all that is not understood by logical reason can become known in methods which transcend logic. Less ambitious however, the correspondence between nature in Secum Reputare and man's gaze merely represents a point of departure for grasping the import of fallen leaves. 'Meditatio' then takes root in recognising the essence of fallen nature; that of human nature and nature herself, to which human nature belongs. Both cohere in their fall. In correspondence; 'meditatio' and its practice then sustains a nourishing relationship with the detail of life, without which life risks falling into a lapse of daily banality. This is spirit.

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