B.

In these, her latest works, Philippa Blair, in returning home, explores the tree form as a symbol of life, illustrating metaphorically growth, change, birth and death.

The works for this exhibition were made between February and November 1985 while the artist was in Christchurch spending the year as a visiting lecturer in Painting in the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts. This was the first time she had spent so long in her home town over the last twenty years. Her work is a celebration of the four seasons unfolding through a labyrinth of organic forms. Both symbols and objects mysterious revelations torn by the roots from the imagination – a documentation of a creative process involving body, mind, spirit and heart. It is clear that the content of this work is inextricably woven in Philippa Blair's homecoming.

The idea for the installation 'Sailing in Hagley Park' grew from photographs of trees and memory sketches of sailing, Hagley Park and snakes and ladders. This work is the catalyst and the other paintings and constructions develop from this initial triggering of childhood memories and also from the "Canberra Snakes and Circles" labyrinth works painted in Canberra in 1984.

In these recent works there is a polarity between the constructive (growth/ trees) and the destructive (bomb/symbols). Her multi-media approach works well in her search to express myths, organic forms in a constant state of flux, and the dynamics of nature with reference to human forms. Philippa Blair's work projects great physical energy – dances in a drama, exploring rhythms and tight springs of energy. The darting, sweeping lines and hues have an almost futuristic dynamism, the artist concentrating here on colour and rhythmic force as basic expressions of nature's spiritual force. Thus, objective and subjective feelings are fused.

Apart from the direct response to the environment, Philippa Blair has been inspired by reading Jorge Luis Horges 'Labyrinths' and Len Lye's 'Figures in Motion'. The latter with its obsession with movement provided the artist with the fable "A Tree Has Its Heart in Its Roots". This short story has ecological overtones and concludes, "Today when people stand up straight and still on the hills and feel the earth with their feet they are most like a tree – because a tree has its heart in its roots".

Aptly, this extract sums up the inspiration for this exhibition, a physical and spiritual "homecoming".

('"A Tree Has Its Heart In Its Roots", Works by Philippa Blair', Bulletin, No.43, January/February 1986, p.1)