Aurora Arborealis

The illuminated tree is a key motif of the enchantment of Christmastime. First introduced to the UK from Germany by Queen Charlotte in 1800, the Christmas tree’s origins are old. It grew from the tradition of a ‘Paradise Tree’ representing the Garden of Eden whose evergreen branches lit with candles symbolised rebirth around the Winter Solstice. This in turn had its roots not just in the pagan tree-worshipping cultures of northern Europe, but also in ancient Egyptian and Roman traditions where evergreen garlands symbolised eternal life and renewal. The tree illuminated brings light in the dark forest, a folkloric place akin to the unconscious where storytelling and imagination rule. ‘Aurora Arborealis’ is an exhibition of eight contemporary artists exploring this most fecund of seasonal themes. Andrew McIntosh’s Highland Gothic paintings present trees mysteriously glowing in the wilderness. A copse of three echoes the witches in Macbeth, while a single solitary root writhes with organic energy into the sky. The isolated wilds are so often the location for meaningful, sometimes mystical experiences. Andrew’s paintings capture that surreal and almost superstitious power. Suzanne Moxhay’s images present seemingly real worlds that become stranger and more fantastical on closer inspection. In a copse on trees set on a table like a maquette, glowing lampposts suggest the Narnia-like imaginative potential of the forest. The light draws us in the same way a moth is drawn to a bulb, attracted instinctively to its glow. Gill Button’s paintings describe the forest as a place of ritual, where trees becomes focal points like portals to anther realm. Her ink drawings on paper describe misty mystical scenes, her portraits timeless garlanded figures. Despite their romantic fairytale feel, there is also a sense of melancholy, of longing for an imagined time past. Bertrand Secret’s ‘Small Gods’ present like enigmatic totems of long-lost rituals. With the air of spirits or sprites dwelling in the forest, they have an animistic presence. Each is individual, formed from stoneware with a raw, naive, folk art feel. Imbued with French Fauvism but with a mystical undercurrent, they exude an otherwordly sense of magic. Andy Harper’s paintings, while seemingly of organic matter, are exercises in disciplined abstract mark making. Their density echoes the deep forest, packed with strange and alien configurations. One painting echoes Uccello’s ‘The Hunt in the Forest’, an old template to give form to the darkness of the imagination. Accompanying works have vibrant colouring creating a hallucinatory quality akin to the Northern Lights. Iain Andrews’s paintings also reference historical artworks to suggest how they can act as templates to help shape our understanding of the unfamiliar. In one work, a Goya-esque figure morphs into a cosmic tree form. In accompanying works, apocalyptic skies reminiscent of John Martin, manifestations of light in the darkness, echo the appeal of the Northern Lights but with spiritual gravity. Claire Curneen’s ceramic sculptures explore the uncertain space between the earthly and the ethereal, with figures made from raw earth brought into being in a state on the brink of consciousness. The figure here acts as a host for a tree growing from its heart, intersected as if at the point of creation, a body as root for the imaginative branchings of the tree. Carolein Smit’s ceramic sculptures also depict forest dwellers, the animated animals who inhabit a darkness energised by the imagination. One is a small mouse sitting on a clump of leaves hugging a precious blackberry. Others are an owl and bats hanging in the hidden spaces above, creatures symbolic of the night and its flights of imagination.