Growing Where Life Puts Us
by Aberjhani
Title
Growing Where Life Puts Us
Artist
Aberjhani
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
This composite photograph, "Growing Where Life Puts Us," is the first official entry in a series of images celebrating life's capacity for sustaining and perpetuating itself under less-than-ideal conditions. The center image shows the beginning of a shrub growing between the edge of a yard and a sidewalk separated by a thick heavy wooden beam. The different earth tones with the splash of sunlight and green of the plant itself makes a kind of natural art all its own. The color photograph sits inside a black and digital print of leafy vines growing over the edge of an abandoned building.
The theme for this new series came from one of my favorite novels, "The Famished Road" by Nigerian author Ben Okri. In the novel, a father directs his son's attention to a wooden pole which someone stuck in the ground and which for some unknown reason has begun to blossom. The father tells his son, "This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down." During my treks through southern urban centers in America, I noticed how efficiently certain plants demonstrated this advice by adapting to whatever cracks or surfaces were available to them in order to put down roots and grow where they were.
Many of these plants might have been labeled as weeds because some considered them problematic when it comes to maintaining a garden or property. But to me nearly all reflected their own brand of admirable beauty. Not to mention the fact they help provide the oxygen we breathe to stay alive. In addition, they also showed the same instinct for clinging to life (often literally) as people recently displaced by the tsunami in Indonesia and Hurricane Florence in the United States. In other words, when looked at from different perspectives, they are both beautiful, inspiring, and essential.
The work may be purchased at 30 percent off from now until December 31, 2018, using Promo Code HSPRXZ.
Aberjhani
October 2018
Uploaded
October 2nd, 2018
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Viewed 1,195 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 03/27/2024 at 5:27 PM
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Comments (13)
VIVA Anderson
Agree with Laurie, Dear Aberjhani......thank you!! for your always inspiriting Art , Thoughts........fav.......VIVA
Laurie's Intuitive
Thought provoking and powerful artwork! Inspiring and beautifully done, Aberjhani!
Aberjhani's Official Postered Chromatic Poetics
Thank you very much friends and colleagues for your very kind encouraging comments. And to the YOUR VERY BEST PHOTOGRAPHY Group for previously featuring "Growing Where Life Puts Us."
VIVA Anderson
"Clinging to life", yes, Aberjhani..so stunningly seen,presented, is this great vision,so full of trust...in life, in each other, wherever we set ourselves down........kudos,compliments........so very thought-provoking, of course, as is your vision and art........... f.v.......VIVA
Aberjhani replied:
Greatly appreciate that VIVA. I'm inspired by this series and hope to do the concept some justice.
Geraldine Scull
Great selective coloring and framing ~ l/f
Aberjhani replied:
Thank you very much Geraldine. The frame used here could become a separate canvas altogether some day.