“Let it be - what can never be. Fold away your talons and your claws, learn to live in harmony and peace. May Utopia remain a dream, for what is truth? Only a flickering of images in our brains. And what is fiction? Nothing more nor less than truth, save that we may keep it to ourselves” ― Patrick Woodroffe
Two years ago, just by coincidence, I stumbled upon an amazing book signed by Patrick Woodroffe called “Mytho Poeikon” in an antique shop. I had never heard his name before but, as I opened the book, a wave of colours and visual stories engulfed me. It didn’t take long to fall in love with his amazing sci-fi paintings, etchings, sculptures, mixed media works and tomographs (photographs that combine actual objects with cut-outs of paintings).
Woodroffe was an English artist who surprisingly graduated French and German at Leeds University, but his call and passion was art; therefore, he spent most of his time creating, despite the lack of an art background:
“I suddenly knew that painting could achieve something that no camera could ever achieve, that for me art was to be a means by which a new world could be revealed, a world seen only within the mind”
The detail and surreal touch of his work, attracted many eyes and soon enough he could organize exhibitions around the country, including Covent Garden Gallery in London and also collaborate with some famous musicians, by creating album covers.
One of Woodroffe’s works that really impressed me was
“Mother and Child in flight”. This is a tomograph mechanical piece, around 60x 80cm. Woodroffe painted the characters in oils on laminate and cut their shape carefully with a craft knife. He reinforced the painting cut outs by mounting them on perfectly cut pieces of wood, stuck on the back to prevent warping. This allowed Woodroffe to carefully handle and manipulate the tomographs when he photographed them. The mother and child are shown in two alternative poses, which simply fit into a slot and represent the strong bonding between the two. Small lengths of bamboo set in resin filler made sockets for feathers, which created a mechanical dragon-like bird figure. The beads, feathers, strings, chains, even hair, give the piece more realism and enhance the visual movement of the figure.
I think Woodroffe chose these materials to draw the viewer into the story, to enable the painted image to escape into the real world, thereby creating strange interactions and encounters that baffle the eye. The flight – especially by using real bird feathers – plays on the viewer’s wish or fantasy to achieve the impossible – to fly. Composed against the sky, the scene represents something one might desire to touch – the heavens – and the artist speaks directly to the child within every person.
Using the materials he had on hand or found in nature, he reuses and recycles, with thought for the environment. It is instructive how the artist goes through all the materials and processes with such craftsmanship, painting, cutting, assembling, photographing, and playing with light and real life background.
Looking at the piece of the mother and child, I instantly feel the connection with my mother and the wonderful fairytales she was reading me every night. The protection I had in her arms and the unconditional love. My childhood dream to travel into unknown spaces and explore the universe is somehow soothed by looking at Woodroffe’s artworks. There is a sense of warmth, comfort, lust, dreaming, and escapism from the mundane.
Woodroffe inspires me and sometimes I’m calling him grandpa Patrick, as all his works give me wings in a way and resonate with my storyteller within. As a collage artist, he helps me and teaches me that materials are endless and they can all be used to create a story that will look realistic and at the same time out of this world.
See more of his art works bellow:
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