Green Man
I am fascinated by the parallel existence of beings like the Japanese Kappa, the Czech water-goblin Vodník or indeed extraterrestrial beings, or the Hulk. These seems to emerge out of unknown and unfathomable depths and dark pools, out of our deep collective subconscious.
The human eye is most sensitive to light around 555 nanometres, which is green.
The Green Man is the almost forgotten, time-obscured ancient foliate spirit, renowned and revered by many civilisations and adopted by many religions. He stands for the eternal cycle of nature, a mystical being who dies and is reborn every year. He has always been associated with convoluted rituals and customs in connection with the concepts of winter, the seeming death of nature and its subsequent miraculous rebirth in the spring. I also see him as the resuscitation of animalistic wildness, the rediscovery of a resurgent wellspring of energy. Rather than the traditional likeness of the Green Man, beset with offshoots and sprigs burgeoning from his face, I am fascinated by the repeating occurrence and variety of green hues and figures in multitudinous cultures. In ancient Egypt, green was the symbolic colour of growth and of life itself. Green is linked to the creative and fruitful power of Christianity’s Holy Spirit, as well as the Greek goddess Aphrodite, patroness of love and fertility.