Скачать или смотреть Candy Cane Tree of Life and Anthony D Padgett - Commission for the Harris Museum & Art Gallery 2020

Candy Cane Tree of Life and Anthony D Padgett 2020

A Christmas commission for the Harris Museum and Art Gallery 2020 in Preston. Filmed at the nearby Birley Studios.
a multiple branched tree based on ancient designs and created as a “candy cane” construction.
I look at the origins of the Christmas tree. Whilst this will look at some religious symbolism the proposal is from a non-religious/sectarian point of view. The aim is to present a universal celebratory symbol.
It takes inspiration from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden but echoes Santa's North Pole. A piece of Postmodern Religious Art that makes a comment about how the focus on the sacred has become a focus on consumerism. At the same time the sculpture turns the focus back to the original sacred tree.

Christmas history is usually taken back to the Victorian Period (and the influence of Prince Albert) or to the Germanic and Scandinavian roots. I’d like to trace the idea back to a universal starting point. I’d like to take it past the standard symbolism of the Christmas tree as a symbolic celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ (with the tree as a pre-figuring of the crucifixion) and to the idea of the Tree of Life at the Garden of Eden. Theologically the death on the cross is a salvation from the Fall and a return to a new Eden and to the Tree of (Eternal) Life. This expands beyond just a Christian symbol as the Tree of Life is shared by the Abrahamic Faiths (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) and also universal in the Tree as a symbol in world cultures and religions. Looking at the Mesopotamian influences on the origins of the Old Testament we can see various designs on cuniform tablets and seals. It is one of these designs I’d like to create in a modern celebratory form. It would also link to William Morris’s design of an Assyrian Tree of Life.
By turning the tree into a candy cane it also makes the image playful and contemporary. Furthermore the 19th century origins of the candy cane – with its theological symbolism of white (purity) and red (sacrifice) are hinted at – and of its barber