Mapping Paradise

This large scale drawing was created by Elaine Allison and Patricia Bray during an artists’ residency at Kunstlerhaus Lukas in Ahrenshoop, Germany. It explores notions of Paradise using as source material art historical (Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ and Breugel’s ‘Paradise’) and Koranic (Paradise Garden carpet) references. Ideas presented by friends and colleagues in answer to a short series of questions, and our our responses to a new environment also fed into the work. What emerges is a duality - Paradise is an ideal state like Eden, perfect and harmonious, but it is also unchanging, and for many this idea means that it is not far away from hell. This is represented in the imagery, the style and the materials used. Controlled, decorative drawing and text contrasts with the unrestrained mark making of the hidden painted layer which is only fully visible under black light (using the special torches provided)