Following on from his Wellingtonia exhibition in late 2010 and early 2011, which involved observations of various aspects of Mount Wellington, and reflections of various states of being in the world, such as ascension, Jonathan Barnard, in his Tiger and the Serpent exhibition, examines the natural world that surrounds us in his works on paper and such paintings as Tiger and the Serpent, Tiger Snake, Tiger Burning and Entanglement, a process that he began in his Wellingtonia exhibition in such paintings as Serpentine Way and Where Thylacines Roam, because of his love of the numinous and the ancient land we live on.
Professor Henry Reynolds stressed Tasmanians love of their native land in his recent History of Tasmania, yet the last thing that you could credit many Tasmanians for, given the extent to which they, like many of their fellow Australians, love to pollute, is love of their native land. Barnard’s art reminds us that, given our own serpentine nature, we can channel our own internal fire into the highest chakra, and thus to the highest level of human endeavour, or we can simply act in the most basic and base way, ‘each Chakra being responsible for the distribution of life-energy’1.
In Aboriginal societies ‘tribal initiates or “clever men”’ are ‘closely connected to the snake’ and ‘thus, in its highest aspect, it relates to wisdom and enlightenment.’2 In ‘the way of the soul’s ascent to God’, ‘the cabalist begins at the foot of the Tree and works upwards, following the course of the “Serpent of Wisdom”, which coils itself round and round the Tree’3, ‘the “curved path”, “whirling mass”, “cosmic wheel” or spiralling vortex’ being ‘described by the ancients as the integrating pattern of cosmic universal energy’4.
‘Siva the Serpent King, patron of the Yogis, possessor of the ultimate wisdom on the earthly or material plane, insists that spiritual evolution through “illumination” can occur in a single lifetime, thus eliminating a succession of rebirths.’5 ‘The snake belongs to those beings which are believed to possess to a high degree that magical energy which is indicated by the Sanskrit word “Tajas”, meaning heat or fire.’6 In Kundalini Yoga when ‘aroused, the life-energy ascends along the Brahma Nadi to the head’7, the serpent being ‘the aspect symbolic of the Universal creative energy or “life force” manifesting in man as “consciousness”.’8 Thus ‘the Winged Cobra is representative of the transcendental nature of higher consciousness or total spiritual enlightenment, and as such the image adorned the entrance to all sacred temples and schools of initiation in Egypt’, ‘an ancient Indian legend’ telling ‘of a precious Jewel in the Cobra’s head. Symbolically, this jewel represents “light”, the precious source of wisdom.’9 In India ‘“Naga”’ means “wise serpent”, the title given long ago to those who had acquired great wisdom.’10
What James Cowan calls ‘the luz/ miwi / kundalini nexus, when developed, can precipitate a restoration of the primordial state and so being about man’s recovery of his sense of eternity’11. ‘Miwi power’ is ‘closely associated with quartz crystals’, snakes figuring ‘largely in the karadji initiation ceremonies throughout Australia, and are closely associated with the presence of these wild stones’, ‘like kundalini serpent-power, they’ being ‘capable of communing with the inner eye of a karadji’12, who is ‘the guardian of traditional culture and scared lore’13, and so release miwi, or power.’14
Like his friend and fellow artist Todd Jenkins, the beginning, and much of the basis of Barnard’s art, could be seen as arising from his exploration of the natural world, from the way, as a young boy around the age of seven or eight, he immersed himself in the natural world that surrounded him near Risdon Cove and Grasstree Hill Road where his parents owned a property of around 15 acres. Here Barnard’s grandfather built a tree house and flying fox, and Barnard lost himself in play and exploration, climbing trees, investigating caves and rivulets, making bows and arrows, and shooting them, and collecting rocks that he admired for, for instance, the deep purple colour they had, or their crystalline nature.
Tiger and the Serpent is a sumptuous painting that verges almost on being sickly sweet. Here a gumtree that, in its form, could almost be seen as a sensuous woman, appears to be fleeing a tiger and burning bush while, in Temper Burning, we see the ghostly presence of Tasmanian tigers and birds. Barnard’s exhibition is both an act of homage to, and a lament for, the natural world, and what has been lost from it, including the iconic Tasmanian tiger, because of the stupidity and unthinking nature of many human beings who continue to foul the universe they inhabit, as, like a scientist, he explores the nature of things.
References:
1 Mark Balfour, The Sign of the Serpent, The Key to Creative Physics, Prism Press, Dorset, 1990, p.24.
2 Ibid., p.53.
3 Richard Cavendish, The Magical Arts, Arkana, London, 1984, p.104.
4 Balfour, The Sign of the Serpent, The Key to Creative Physics, op. cit., p.97.
5 Ibid., p.31.
6 Ibid., p.16.
7 Ibid., p.25.
8 Ibid., p.27.
9 Ibid., p.32.
10 Ibid., p.13.
11 James Cowan, Mysteries of the Dreaming, The Spiritual Life of Australian Aborigines, Brandl & Schlesinger, Rose Bay, New South Wales, 2001, pp.26-27.
12 Ibid., p.27.
13 Ibid., p.16.
14 Ibid., p.27.
Michael Denholm’s essay was written as the preface to Tiger & Serpent, a collection of paintings by Jonathan Barnard, Goulburn Street Gallery, West Hobart, Tasmania, 2012. The book retails for $50 from Goulburn Street Gallery, 91 Goulburn Street Gallery, where his paintings are currently on exhibit. (In TT’s What’s On here).
