Voices of Experience – Graeme Stevenson

Voices of Encounter

Graeme Stevenson

Age of Innocence

   We know Graeme Stevenson principally from his really prosperous, award-profitable television series, Color in Your Everyday living. Stevenson has traveled internationally to job interview artists and display their get the job done and life to his large environment-extensive audience. (Graeme visited us in our studios listed here to film a phase on John’s work in 2018.) Color in Your Existence has been filmed in seven nations around the world and is syndicated on television networks in in excess of 50 international locations. In his intention to protect the function of artists for foreseeable future generations to get pleasure from, Stevenson had collaborated with Dr. Samuel Paralta (who is functioning with NASA and SpaceX) to have all episodes of the present incorporated in a SpaceX Lunar rocket that will take them to the moon.

   285 total-duration Colour in Your Lifestyle episodes—representing just about every time in addition distinctive editions—have been loaded into the Lunar Codex, which is presently remaining ingested into a NASA time capsule as element of The Polaris Assortment. This capsule will be released to the lunar floor in November 2023 as section of the NASA VIPER Rover mission. The probe will land at the South Pole of the Earth’s moon, wherever it will be stored in a DHL MoonBox or a “Museum on the Moon,” and remain there forever.

   Because of his tricky work on behalf of the arts and his charitable operate, Stevenson was awarded the Medal of the Buy of Australia (OAM), a person of the highest honors offered to an Australian citizen.

   We requested Grame to compose to us about his personalized artwork, his existence escalating up in New South Wales, Australia, his procedures and inspirations and the intricate themes driving his monumental portray, The Truth of the matter.

Pharoah’s Pleasure

   Red hair and freckles gave me a childhood that was a small divided from most. I learnt what bigotry and intolerance have been at an early age—simply due to the fact someone has freckles doesn’t signify there is a little something wrong with them, enable by yourself pores and skin color or sexual orientation.

   So, I put in a great deal of time wandering in the bush and exploring and researching the native animals and fauna. I bred indigenous parrots, until finally some lowlife broke into my aviaries and killed all my birds. I missing about 50 treasured birds that day and was distraught that I would have to set all these birds in the ground. My mindset in existence is that if everyday living provides me lemons, I will do the job out a way to make lemonade.

   I was just nine at the time. So, I decided to cellphone the area science labs to obtain out if any person did taxidermy in the place. There was a German gentleman identified as Professor Hans Dimple that worked at some labs about 25 miles from wherever we lived in Canberra, (the Australian funds). I experienced a Gold Malvern Star bicycle in individuals times. I produced the journey each and every Saturday to the labs and learnt how to do taxidermy. Mum and Father inspired me in all techniques to do my art and direct an inquiring lifestyle as a great deal as I could.

   It was about this time just after I experienced mounted quite a few of my dead birds, that I identified that I could use them to study for my artwork. A great deal to my mum and dad’s horror, the downstairs part in the garage turned into its have lab and I started to mount all forms of creatures about time. It was fantastic to examine the skeletons and muscle tissues of all of these animals—mind you I by no means killed any animals to do this—lots of roadkill. As persons understood I could do this, I received all way of animals dropped on the doorway. So I fairly substantially started my art journey with wildlife and discovered how specific the organic entire world is and how essential it is for all of us to survive.
  
   My 1st influences were two girls and a man from England. The women have been my grandmother and a woman who was a major landscape artist and a gentleman who was a major wildlife artist from the British isles known as Raymond Ching. Raymond was a tremendous realist artist and his do the job was head bogglingly excellent. As I acquired older, I tracked down Raymond in England and turned mates and learnt so a great deal from him in the time I invested with him.

   In 1988, my function with portray parrots was recognized and a corporation in The usa approached me about illustrating what would become 1 of the premier textbooks on the species in the earth. My taxidermy was a terrific help in placing the ebook alongside one another and I analyzed intensely on all the species across the planet. It took me a overall of 9,000 hrs to entire the reserve. It is noticed in several all-natural history museums all around the earth.

 

            
                                     Aztec Rainbow                                                  Crimson Colours

   I presently get the job done generally in the studio as a lot of my operate is conceptual. I typically do a phrase association with the structure of the plan and do a draft sketch in scenario I want to modify just about anything.

   What I like to do most of all is to generate pieces from my head. I am generating a piece for a customer at the moment that is based around the CIYL journey to the moon, incredibly exciting ideas crammed with ancient ruins and time photos.

   Place Some Color in Your Life came about because of the kindness of someone else. My greatest good friend in Santa Rosa who aided me out a wonderful offer when I lived in California, asked me to pay it forward, when I experienced a opportunity. About ten many years soon after that, I arrived up with the idea of CIYL. I experienced been performing Tv set for a when in Los Angeles and CIYL was a natural transition. There is a ton involved in the process of placing it with each other, I can assure you.

   I have been affected by some of the artists we have filmed— some of the excellent water colour masters like Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet . Since starting Color in Your Daily life, I have learnt so much from the hundreds of artists we have filmed.

The Real truth

The Real truth

   I are likely to function in the studio and adore to use my creativeness and science and history to aid me inform the story. I would say that The Truth has been a cornerstone piece for me therefore far. This painting is about my personalized truth—a truth, for me, that is dependent in science. It follows an evolutionary journey that permits us to precisely define who we are as human beings—our biology, our record, even our morality. Inevitably, I imagine the mild that shines from scientific consciousness sales opportunities us to dilemma the fundamentals of the world’s religions, primary untruths that look for to avert our eyes from the real truth.

   The key concept of the painting is the evolutionary tree of lifestyle. The Real truth honors the legacy of numerous terrific adult men this kind of as Eratosthenes, Charles Darwin, Leonardo Da Vinci, Edwin Hubble, Isaac Newton, Leonardo Fibonacci, Kenneth Miller, Frank Drake and Stephen Hawking.

   It dissects the origins of the world’s foremost religions by interpreting ancient astrological traditions passed down from Egyptian pharaohs.

   It examines the transitional evidence of fossils and sedimentary layers. It respects the clarity presented by genomes and mitochondrial DNA and it embraces the Hubble area telescope for the light-weight that it shines on distant galaxies.

   There are numerous scientific truths that have their origins in early civilizations. In ancient periods, males of science did exist. 350 years prior to Christ was born, Eratosthenes, an astronomer, geographer, philosopher and mathematician, arrived to the realization that the Earth was spherical.

   The Golden Suggest (or ratio) is an irrational mathematical frequent, around 1.6180339887 that has been adopted by many artists and architects in the proportions of their operates and analyzed by several mathematicians for its special and popular qualities. This is a common amount, which several consider is a layout basic of Egyptian Pyramids and attributable to the dimensions of the Greek Parthenon. It is also a  number, which has been revealed to be relevant to all living creatures, plants, animals and birds…even whales and humans.

   In the 12th century Leonardo Fibonacci was a advanced mathematician famed for implementing simple mathematics to troubles. It led him to create the renowned Fibonacci sequence in which each variety is the sum of the two previous figures. This sequence has proved particularly fruitful and appears in lots of different locations of mathematics and science.

   Quite a few of these scientific discoveries ended up stifled by spiritual leaders and ignored by the church.

   My individual track record was in the Catholic Church, but my inquiries (which led to my atheism) also led me to examine the evolutionary processes that have shaped the earth. I believe that Charles Darwin is one particular of the most influential human beings that has ever existed since he advised us our spot in just the universe and the planet in scientific conditions. When I glance to the heavens, I am grateful for Edwin Hubble, and other people like him, who brought us the arrival of modern cosmology and the means to visually accessibility 150 billion galaxies and the 400 billion stars that exist in our galaxy alone.

   I feel we are promptly achieving the point in our evolution of consciousness where by we require to turn into more aware and far more accountable. We want to see the reality, by the proof. The truths of evolution, along with a lot of other scientific truths, are so engrossingly intriguing and wonderful. The time has come to figure out this and to unite as 1. It is becomingly increasingly very clear that the world’s biodiversity is imperiled on a scale unmatched for thousands and thousands of a long time. As forests are cleared, oceans acidified, illnesses spread, and the environment warmed, a lot of species facial area serious threats to their survival.

   The universe beckons. The real truth is out there. Are we able of uniting our collective conscience to embrace our dreams and hopes in science?

The Ice Queen Cometh

Geisha Song

   Do you have any inspiring phrases you would like to pass together to commencing artists?

   That is the matter about inspiring terms. They are just words and will not make any bridges for you or blaze any trails.

   If you want good results in your everyday living, (and you’ll even now have to function out what achievements will suggest to you in your individual everyday living in any case), never wait all-around for any individual else to make a shift. Understanding and instruction are the key components in having the place you want to go in lifestyle. Study as a lot as you can as normally as you can, and you will not need any inspiring text. You will be the one particular that variations other people’s life merely by your steps and not your text.

   And, eventually, just for enjoyment, if you could sit down for a prolonged conversation with an artist from the past, who would it be?

   Above the several years I have tracked down lots of of the world’s contemporary artists’ residences and do the job and spots. It was so interesting to find the scenes that Van Gogh painted in the south of France and of program check out Monet’s residence. If I experienced my selection to sit down with anyone from the past, I’d say it would have to be Leonardo.

   Like Leonardo, I use my expertise of science and heritage to develop suggestions and illustrations or photos that make the viewer dilemma what they know. I have normally gotten into debates with individuals about faith and culture and how it all maps collectively. The moment all over again, the actuality of actuality about belief can be really confronting for individuals. I dread that it will finally guide to the demise of the species. All creatures eventually go extinct, I never believe we will be any exception.

To see additional of Graeme Stevenson’s operate,

go to:  https://graemestevensonart.com

All artwork copyright Graeme Stevenson

(Remaining:  Graeme Stevenson and his Companion, Jo, at the OAM Awards Ceremony.)