1999 CLOUDFOREST

“Amazon Cloudforest” 1998-9

Damian + Lewanne lived in on a coffee farm in Colombia from 1992-2000

“In Colombia, we would wake each day at 5am and have coffee on our balcony, gazing at the rainforest which extended all around us. At that early hour one could see a snow-covered volcano in the distance, protruding from the forest canopy.”

British Vogue, 1998 (SEE SIX PAGE ARTICLE ON “about” PAGE ABOVE RIGHT)

“One January I climbed that volcano with a friend. There was often no ground beneath our feet as we clambered through tunnels of exotic plants and fauna. Eventually we reached a colorful plateau just below the crater and there we found a source of the Amazon River.”

“It was summer and all the plants were flowering. Using ropes and tent pegs we made a grid around the river source, dividing the area in twelve large rectangles. Over the next eighteen months I painted each rectangle until there was a vast landscape painting.”

The painting describes the small cloud forest surrounding the source. By a freak of nature this source of the Amazon just happens to be located beside the crater of an active volcano.

“Every few years the volcano erupts and kills this entire ecosystem. But the rain is constant, the river continues to come up from the ground, and life begins again.”

“This cycle of life and death has been repeating for hundreds of thousands of years.”

“I decided to describe this place because it says so much about the beginning of life on this planet as well as the fragility of life.”

“We viewed the finished painting for the first time in a local convent which had a large floor.”

“It was exhibited at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica in 1999 and people found themselves walking over a cloud forest composed of hundreds of exotic plants blowing in the wind.”