The Cicada and the Ant Artwork

This painting is part of my work on the universality of references to nature in human cultures. Humankind refers to animals both in populations close to nature and in those who had already begun to move away from it like princes and courtiers of the European royal courts in the past centuries ; Our cities and their inhabitants are even more cut off from nature. The fables of Jean de Lafontaine continues to reflect the flaws of humans. Just as the arts of the native peoples speak to everyone through our common humanity. This series pays tribute to the Native American art. Especially to the peoples of British Columbia (The Salish in particular). It also pays tribute to Jean de Lafontaine. The personal fusion of his two wisdoms into freely inspired drawings aims in a quest for the quintessence of the human. I use Indian ink, a symbolically very powerful medium, as well as inks and white gel pen and golden leaves. This pasted brighten leave symbolize (it can shine at the light) symbolize the wisdom that can be seen if it is illuminated, but that almost disappears in the weft of the beige canvas without light (if the light does not illuminate it directly). Symbolically, this reference to gold highlights the difference between a sign of material wealth, earth-to-earth, omnipresent in our globalized materialistic world, and a spiritual richness the human wisdom that shines and is thus only revealed when it is brought to light.