About the Eco-Shrine

Double rainbow over the Eco-Shrine
click any picture to enlarge...

I built the Eco-Shrine in 1995 because I felt impelled to make a place
where art and nature, science and a sense of the sacred come together.

Visualising Earth’s Origins

In this painting I visualized the Earth forming in a cloud of star residue, or nebula. I painted rivers of gold around the early life forms which began in the waters of Earth.

Visualizing Earth’s Origins

Earth Seed

Earth Seed

What is the nature of Earth? It was only in the latter part of the 20th century that scientists began to think of the Earth as a single self- regulating organism. Significantly however, indigenous nations world-wide knew this all along.

In this painting I used the metaphor of a seed of Earth to explore with joy the organic nature of the planet.

The Ecological Self

In this painting I worked from a photo of a view of Earth from space and moulded it into a female human figure. She experiences herself as an integral part of Earth and she blossoms in the spring.

"The Ecological Self"

Part of the cement relief which covers
all the walls of the enclosure.

The cement relief which covers all the brickwork depicts the evolution of life on Earth. This frieze, though geologically accurate, has a free flowing expressive quality.

The mosaics are a compilation of ancient images made by San artists and photographs of the universe from the Hubble space telescope.

The San were the first people in the Hogsback area. They upheld the tryst of reciprocity between themselves and the Earth. They made provision for the generations to come.

View of the mosaics.

Group of school students attending ecology workshop

Diana Graham presenting an environmental art workshop to learners from a nearby school.

Groups of High school learners and teachers, university students, psychologists, scientists, retreatants, journalists, poets, film makers and tour groups from all over the world visit the Eco-shrine.

I see my job as a lovely one of teaching and learning and painting, and I now understand most of the different viewpoints people have regarding themselves and the rest of Nature.

I think a visit to the Eco-shrine primarily gives viewers an experience of silence, vastness and wholeness.

A visit to the Eco-shrine and studio can also give visitors an understanding of how it has come about that the global culture is causing Climate Change and the 6th Extinction of Species without even intending to.

I suggest to visitors that we now have the ecological knowledge and the technology to devise systems that work symbiotically with Earth’s ecosystems rather than at the direct expense of the life support systems of the planet.

I paint visions of symbiosis.