An exhibition of paintings and ebroidered sculptures

At the Ann Bryant Gallery in East London, 25 April to 11 May, 2013

Artists: Diana Graham and Fiona Almeleh

Exhibition Opening: Thursday, 25 April at 18h00
by Professor Dan Wylie, Department of English, Rhodes University

Click on any image to see an enlargement

The "Deeply Ecological" Exhibition Artists Diana Graham and Fiona Almeleh are friends and kindred spirits. Their exhibition entitled "Deeply Ecological" comprising Fiona’s embroidered sculptures and Diana’s paintings will open in the Coach House at the Ann Bryant Gallery in East London on 25th April and will run until 11th May. The Deep Ecology movement offers a solution to the global environmental crisis through a radical shift in consciousness; a fundamental change in the way people relate to the natural world. This influential philosophical and socio-political movement emerged in the 1980’s from Eco-feminism, Eco-spirituality and Ecological Philosophy. The Deep Ecology movement stands for radical social change in that it promotes the vision of a world based on ecological values, social equity and holistic perspectives. In her paintings entitled 'Bird Abbey’, 'Antelope Ancestral Tree’ and 'Butterfly Krans’, Diana has moulded the fossil record of the evolution of various species into fountain-like shrines set in appropriate landscapes. The painting 'The Eta Carinae Nebula Seeding a Panet’ reflects her interest in Cosmology.  In her 'Self Portrait: The Ecological Self’, a painting without a human figure, she explores the ability to identify 'Self’ as that part of the Earth and Cosmos able to reflect upon itself. See the Buddhist concept of "Interbeing", Jung’s "Deep Self" and Professor Arne Naess’s "The Ecological Self."   Theodore Roszak wrote "This consciousness of a part of the Earth able to reflect upon itself has taken billions of years to evolve". From this perspective Climate Change can be viewed as an outer manifestation of an inner spiritual crisis or spiritual dysfunction on the part of humans with regard to the rest of Nature.

Diana Graham In 1995 Diana built the Eco-shrine at Hogsback. For the last seventeen years she has lived the life of shrine-keeper and painter. The Eco-shrine and adjacent studio-gallery attract thousands of visitors annually and are regularly featured in all the media. In 2003 she received a Ford Foundation scholarship to attend a course at Schumacher College, an international centre for Ecological studies situated in England, and affiliated to Dartington Hall. The course was entitled "The New Cosmology, Insights from Science, Art and Ecology." Diana also exhibits in the cities of the Eastern Cape. Her work is in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipal Gallery, the Ann Bryant in East London, the Durban Art Gallery, and in private collections in South Africa, the USA, England, Scotland, Denmark, Australia and Namibia. Website: www.ecoshrine.co.za

Diana Graham

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