Geometric patterns and symmetry surround us, my work explores patterns and forms that occur and re-occur in nature; specifically concentrating on structures that we do not notice but are all around us.

We are surrounded by structure, pattern and order, yet we perceive chaos, disorganisation and stress.

Our relationship with nature is a contradiction and a paradox. What man perceives is wholly natural is often planted and cultivated by others and what is perceived as wild and untamed is natural but also ordered and structured. Natural disasters are perceived as wild and cruel but they often have a purpose within nature and are often the trigger for regeneration and life.

The intuitive harmony we feel when surrounded by nature is perhaps the calming sense of order playing on our subconscious?

I try and represent this by combining macro elements from natural forms that the everyday rambler would not notice and combine and enlarge them either through photographic and digital techniques to recreate flora and fauna in a partially fractured abstract form or through painting and mixed media to create strong, brightly coloured images. The natural forms and textures I use are from the British landscape today, either a husk or leaf I find walking, or an exotic flower or vegetable which symbolises the gardening tradition and how we have manipulated, changed and imported the current landscape.

I am currently exploring microscopic forms in more depth, and the patterns, which are reflected on all scales of a natural object. I am achieving this by layering images on canvas, doing delicate drawings of patterns on a translucent layer over my paintings and using geometry to try and reflect the infinite fractal patterns that are all around us. This process creates new and different forms that hint at the source but produce imagery that is using the landscape tradition in an entirely new way.

© Claire Harrison, April 2008