THE ELEMENTS

Water, Fire, Earth and Air – The four classical elements as defined by Empedocles. 

Empedocles four elements resonate in many ways and according to their meaning or symbolism in different cultures throughout the centuries. I find this interesting, but I wanted to reflect upon my own personal vision of these elemental syntaxes.

What attracted me to the idea of representing these elements is that the interpretation and visualization of any of these concepts have been represented in a number of ways through history and art and according to their meaning or symbolism in different cultures.

So I am interested not only because of the visual representation of each of these four elements is strongly conditioned by symbology, philosophy and other cultural baggage but also because I am drawn to the pure aesthetics of them, just the visual logistics, textures, colors, shapes, composition, etc.

When I represent Fire, for example, I am not only attracted to the visual component of fire – its colors, textures, shapes, etc, but also to my personal interpretation of it. Fire for me also means inspiration in that particular moment of my life, I represented this by adding a number of eyes, the eyes represent gates to other worlds, and so on one thing leads to another…

Water changes constantly, not only its texture but its shape and color, this in itself makes it an attractive visual challenge.

And of course the same can be said for all the others.

Sometimes I chose to represent the more mundane aspect of a particular element. For example, in representing Earth I focus on the underground creatures, the hidden. Larvae and fossils appear between roots.

In Air I want to express fragility and lightness, I chose to represent this by dandelion and feather shapes that intertwine together.