THE SPIRIT'S GAZE

“ This body of work is a conversation between myself, nature and the inner realm. Energetic connections between each botanical form, their colours, all combining to become a my tool to ponder and grasp at the hidden spirit. Slowly, trying to listen closely to the evolution of things "
Georgia Beaumont
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In Georgia Beaumont’s effervescent botanical paintings, stems cross and petals overlap in translucent layers. Kinetic interactions emerge among the plasticity of unfurling floral structures, building a lively chatter that echoes the animate interconnectivity of the more-than-human world. Delicate flowers are juxtaposed with areas of opacity and bolder pigmentation, balancing ethereality with an unexpected spikiness.

The works recall the tangle of the meadow or hedgerow; an unruly living mass which, on closer inspection, resolves into an intrinsic logic. Choosing retrospectively to paint individual specimens or rarely presenting individual botanical specimens, Beaumont weaves flowers together, her visual language of repeated motifs speaking to the cyclicality of nature. There is a hint, too, of the patterning of illuminated manuscripts or the infinite flourishings of Celtic loops, perhaps symbolizing the completeness but fundamental unknowability of nature.
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Beaumont starts by spending time in green spaces, gathering source imagery from the natural world through close observation, noticing changes and cycles within her environment. She then retreats into herself, mentally layering her source material with imagery from her mind’s eye, fusing external prompts with internalised emotions and responses. She finally realises the emergent patterns in paint, crafting delicate webs of overlapping floral forms.
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In creating new work for this exhibition, Beaumont has been particularly interested in theories of umwelt and innenwelt. These philosophies explore how the world exists differently for each individual, examining how the self is mapped onto our surroundings. In this conceptualisation, nature becomes a mirror for our internal realms – and yet at the same time, those internal realms are inescapably determined by what we observe of the natural world around us. Beaumont proposes that through close observation of our environments, we can guide our interior lives towards perceptiveness, empathy, and beauty. In doing so, looking becomes a creative act.
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Flowers carry with them a weight of gendered, psychological, and art historical symbolism, always holding in their lively blossoming the knowledge that they will one day wither and fade. Beaumont’s paintings reject the trivialisation of the decorative and feminine, instead foregrounding the indispensability of flowers in their biological role in plant reproduction and their symbolic role as vessels of emotion and contemplation.
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Throughout her oeuvre, the artist draws on a childlike inclination for harmony and balance, finding that motifs from her childhood drawings emerge in her paintings. There is a hazy, dreamlike quality to her works, a whimsical entrance into an alternative picture plane that eschews the rules of landscape painting and instead attempts to weave a nuanced dialogue between the visible and the unseen.
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Text by Anna Souter