Aidon Westcott is a painter and sculptor
who works from his studio in his Nahoon home in East London, South Africa.
He has held many successful exhibitions locally and exhibits regularly at
the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa.
Aidon's artworks address difficult environmental, psychological and spiritual
concerns of the modern world. His work portrays fish, which are symbolic
of the unconscious and represents spiritual food in search of inner clarity.
They also carry a message of environmental awareness with the aim to alert
the public of the potential reduction of certain species to mere figments
of collective memory.
The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity and the Ichthyology
Department of the Albany Museum Makana Biodiversity Centre in Grahamstown
has been instrumental in helping him with research and reference material.
Dr Jim Cambray's (from AMMBC) guidance and input has been essential in the
research of the critically endangered Eastern Cape Rocky (Sandelia Bainsii).
Aidon Westcott’s work explores fragments of a former culture through
the use of ephemera from yesteryear. His work explores the use of mixed
media techniques such as collage, photomontage and found objects, which
invest new and continually shifting meaning and interpretations for each
individual.
The individual essence of the materials and nature of the found objects
selected by the artist, play an important part in creating the mood and
atmosphere for each artwork.
The term Ephemera covers a wide range of transitory written or printed
documents including leaflets, handbills, tickets, trade cards, programs,
playbills, printed tins, packaging, adverts, posters, postcards photographs
and newspapers.
These documents are not intended to be retained or preserved but each
item reflects the moods or mores of past time in a way that formal records
cannot.
The fish as symbols themselves are products of the emotions (sea) and
intuition (freshwater), so fish can be symbolic of the world of symbols,
in contrast with the purely materialistic earthbound approach to life.
Fish are the treasures of the waters, which in general symbolise the psyche
in contrast with the body: the unconscious rather than the ordinary conscious.
They stand for symbols of sacrifice and profound life, referring to the
invisible, spiritual world and represent the life force that surges up
from under the world of appearance. The fish symbol becomes productive
of the human predicament depicting patterns in the psyche in the cycle
of life.
The artworks aim to provide a platform for the conscious and unconscious
mind to meet with the goal of unification and for the true essence of
our true being to be revealed.
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Artist: AIDON WESTCOTT
Title: Vanity
Size: 23 x 30 cm
Media: Mixed
Price: R 2 790 |
