IN SEARCH OF THE GREEN MAN
Someone said to me recently that the ‘Green Man’ is dead, and although I’ve never consciously pursued or purposely evoked, this infuriated me and got me thinking who the green man and green woman is in our 21st century age of climate breakdown and habitat destruction.
Drawing amongst the Birch trees on a former industrial site in The Black Country, in a landscape that has been raped, abused and pillaged to near oblivion, but where nature is reclaiming the land, this jab at my attempts to find meaning in the landscape of England by saying the ‘The Green Man is dead’ weighed ever heavier on my heart. Is the green man and green woman of English Mythology really dead? Against a backdrop of drop of traffic, sirens, pollution and concrete it would be easy to kick the green man into oblivion as a relic of a superstitious past, but drawing every day amongst the silver birch, the baby oak and hawthorn it is clear that the greening of the land cannot be contained or even understood. Through every crack or crevice in the tarmac green shoots appear. Insects have been biting me and I’m aware the greening energy I’m trying to paint is far bigger than me and untameable in its power.
The green leaves of summer are starting to fade to shades of autumn grey and with it a sense of melancholy hangs in the air. A green woodpecker has been my companion over the last few weeks, calling and flying in bursts of red, greens and yellows. Reminding me that the green man and green woman is as much a state of mind as an actuality. An act of consciously engaging and opening to the power of the land. Green woodpecker reminded me that the power of green man and woman are still inhabiting this land, even if we have to search evermore harder to hear their voices and to see their faces.
In a landscape that has been raped, abused and pillaged to near oblivion, and against a backdrop of drop of traffic, sirens, pollution and concrete it would be easy to say the green man is a relic of a superstitious past, but drawing every day amongst the silver birch , the baby oak and hawthorn it is clear that the greening of the land cannot be contained or even understood. Through every crack or crevice in the tarmac green shoots appear. Insects have been biting me and I’m aware the greening energy I’m trying to paint is far bigger than me and untameable in its power.