Josephine Jones is inspired to paint many things, but among her favourites are flowers. It is their structure and the shapes of their petals and leaves that attract her. The whole of the natural world is fascinating in these same ways, but it is the added compulsion of colour that compels her to paint flowers.
Josephine believes that not enough credence is given to the plant kingdom as a group of beings in their own right. “Gardening programmes focus far too much on the presenters, rather than on images of the plants with voice-overs,” she says. “We set great importance on being human, but seldom extol the many virtues of plants, without which, humans could not exist on planet earth. Planet earth is Nature. Physical body and emotion. Land and sea. Without Nature, human beings would not be. Perhaps we should consider other beings that share our planetary space as being just as important as we think our own human selves to be.”
The exhibition will focus on the variety of natural beings that exist on planet earth. “This includes nature spirits, believe it or not, even if invisible to the human eye,” she says. “Babies and animals of all kinds can see them, one just needs the consciousness to do so. Many fables are based on fact. These cannot be made up, without benefit of actuality. Fact from fiction is obvious. The one has no integrity. It is not real. There is much unseen but real on planet earth. If the natural history of our planet were studied, we should be aware of much more that constitutes planet earth and all its inhabiting peoples, than we are. We need only to open the eyes of our hearts and awaken dormant consciousness to see and know them.”