Fever Tree

As a child I was attracted to the mysterious yellow-green trunk and branches of the Fever Trees in South Africa.  The bark, boiled into a brew, has been used for thousands of years by African shamans as a method of inducing lucid dreams and divination. This induction is what happens when artists allow their work to take shape away from rational determination.

Certainly for me this dreamlike image grew from such a process. I laid an abstract background of pastel marks dissolved in isoprophyl alcohol on a 24x20 piece of sanded pastel paper. By chance I used as reference an old 4x6 photo, that fluttered out of my files, of murky vegetation growing on the banks of the Hluhluwe River in Zululand to add another layer of pastel marks.  By incorporating  the reflection in the river water I reached into my own memory and attachment to the silent wildness of the African bushvelt. I conjured  “ The great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees” of Rudyard Kipling’s Elephants Child.

This painting is awarded 3rd prize in the Experimental/Abstract category of the Artist Magazines 2018 Competition.

Fever Tree also 1st prize in Pastel Guild of Europe's Open online show.

Collection of Diane Hall.