Anthony Stevens British, b. 1978
The Archaeology of the Land, 2020
Hand embroidery on mixed textiles
69 x 68 cm
Copyright The Artist
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'Although a lot of my work is fairly intuitive, this particular piece for me, really exemplifies this. Visually, this is a very simple piece, but it took several weeks to...
"Although a lot of my work is fairly intuitive, this particular piece for me, really exemplifies this.
Visually, this is a very simple piece, but it took several weeks to make as I had no image in mind when making it and allowed time and circumstance to have it’s way. The flowers on the patterned fabric brought to mind a building up of layers, rather like the mulch at the bottom of a pond or the layers found in ice and rock. The single flower above the surface is only there because of the many layers of flowers that came before it. They nourish the flower whilst at the same time the single flower has access to the air and the light of the stars gives this nourishment back to the ground through it’s roots. It is a symbiotic relationship.
The text came from some notes I had scribbled down a few years ago after going on a night-time walk when I couldn’t sleep. The thought popped into my head whilst looking at the sky. I found the notes on top of a book shelf whilst cleaning. They are written in red and black, the same colours I use in the heart and cross symbol that appears in a lot of my work. It is the essence of a heart remembering it’s true purpose and nature, the three stars above are the crosses transformed.
The patches of striped fabric are reminders of the ongoing drama of life and death, sleeping and waking, consciousness and unconsciousness whilst the blue from the felt on which the work is backed, is the limitless blue sky of Shunyata, the primordial void from which everything originates.
The cross symbol, is associated with the Jungian concept of the quadrant, the symbol for the Self or the totality of the psyche. A symbol which appears to cross boundaries of time, place and culture. It is again made up of striped fabrics and is in pink and blue as in the time/environment in which I grew up, these colours were associated with a the distinction between the sexes.
I suppose the meaning of this piece as far as I understand it, is the importance of the symbiotic relationship we have with the past, present and future. We are building on what came before and what we do to develop ourselves now, will be built on and developed in the future. Our lives become our mission." Anthony Stevens
Visually, this is a very simple piece, but it took several weeks to make as I had no image in mind when making it and allowed time and circumstance to have it’s way. The flowers on the patterned fabric brought to mind a building up of layers, rather like the mulch at the bottom of a pond or the layers found in ice and rock. The single flower above the surface is only there because of the many layers of flowers that came before it. They nourish the flower whilst at the same time the single flower has access to the air and the light of the stars gives this nourishment back to the ground through it’s roots. It is a symbiotic relationship.
The text came from some notes I had scribbled down a few years ago after going on a night-time walk when I couldn’t sleep. The thought popped into my head whilst looking at the sky. I found the notes on top of a book shelf whilst cleaning. They are written in red and black, the same colours I use in the heart and cross symbol that appears in a lot of my work. It is the essence of a heart remembering it’s true purpose and nature, the three stars above are the crosses transformed.
The patches of striped fabric are reminders of the ongoing drama of life and death, sleeping and waking, consciousness and unconsciousness whilst the blue from the felt on which the work is backed, is the limitless blue sky of Shunyata, the primordial void from which everything originates.
The cross symbol, is associated with the Jungian concept of the quadrant, the symbol for the Self or the totality of the psyche. A symbol which appears to cross boundaries of time, place and culture. It is again made up of striped fabrics and is in pink and blue as in the time/environment in which I grew up, these colours were associated with a the distinction between the sexes.
I suppose the meaning of this piece as far as I understand it, is the importance of the symbiotic relationship we have with the past, present and future. We are building on what came before and what we do to develop ourselves now, will be built on and developed in the future. Our lives become our mission." Anthony Stevens
