{"id":20231,"date":"2018-03-28T23:35:19","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T03:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20231"},"modified":"2018-03-28T23:35:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T03:35:19","slug":"botanica-looks-at-the-life-force-in-nature-and-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/botanica-looks-at-the-life-force-in-nature-and-humans\/","title":{"rendered":"Botanica looks at the life force in nature \u2013 and humans"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tree branches are gnarled, bare reminders of seasons past, but spring is in the air. Soon each trunk, stem and twig will erupt in new buds, new growth, ready to give again.
\nYou might dismiss them during the barren winter months, overlooking their beauty and what they have to offer and this, in the eyes of artist Julia Hacker, is just one of the many intersections of flora and fauna.
\nOn Friday, the Aurora Cultural Centre formally opened Botanica, an exhibition of new works by the North York-based artist which \u201cspeak to the life cycle, daily medications of growth and discovery.\u201d
\nInspired by the world around her, Ms. Hacker says the root of the project can be found in \u201cvery simple, almost mundane\u201d things \u2013 but only on the surface.
\n\u201cI realised in life there are no mundane things; they might look a little bit that way on the surface, but they\u2019re not,\u201d she says. \u201cOne day I was walking my dog and it was a very grey day in the late fall. There was no beautiful foliage, no flowers, bare branches, just nakedness in nature. But, I was struck that all of this ugliness is what holds life and nature. If you don\u2019t have a trunk, if you don\u2019t have a branch, new flowers will never come and I thought that was the same with personalities.
\n\u201cWhen you have a trunk \u2013 the character inside you \u2013 you are then able to dress yourself up, get a new lease on life. Then it matures, brings late blooms and fades. Then, the next season comes again, and there is this endless idea of rebranding yourself. I saw that we get it from nature and I realised how we\u2019re really so connected. We have to learn how to sustain the harsh winter in life, in a relationship or a financial situation. As long as you\u2019re there, as long as you\u2019re strong, good things will come back. It gives me a lot of positivity.\u201d
\nA fashion designer by training, Ms. Hacker describes her artistic style and themes as \u201ccontemporary impressionism,\u201d along with \u201cpaintings of nature and the feminine mystique.\u201d That \u201cand\u201d is very important. It certainly isn\u2019t an \u201cor.\u201d
\n\u201cYou are conditioned to think in your life as a woman you\u2019re only feminine and attractive in your young years,\u201d she explains. \u201cI realised that is so not true. Even if you look in nature, you\u2019re not just attracted to the brand new flowers. Look at the dandelion when it just pops up. It is yellow and bright, and one way or another you\u2019re drawn to it. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re irritated, but it is bright and beautiful to look at. It\u2019s the same with a youthful woman; she is so pleasing to the eye, so lovely, and when the dandelion gets to the mature stage, it\u2019s all white, puffy and fragile.
\n\u201cWhen a woman matures, we have more wisdom but there is this fragility. What\u2019s more attractive? The beautiful flower that might be dingy in our eyes, or the wonderful white globe of the mature dandelion? The life of a flower is so short and you might think that\u2019s it, that\u2019s our life as a woman. We mature and then life is over. But you can\u2019t always get rid of the dandelion. We\u2019re always coming back, trying to make points, saying to people around us, \u2018I\u2019m still here, I\u2019m still valuable in my way of life, in my femininity, my wisdom and my different angles.\u201d
\nNow on through May 5, Botanica showcases abstracted botanical life on large canvasses. \u201cMagically,\u201d says the Cultural Centre, \u201cbright oils and metallic mixed media combine to create inspirational pieces that speak to the life cycle and daily meditations of growth and discovery.\u201d
\nThese discoveries can be made anywhere you look and Ms. Hacker says she hopes her paintings inspire people to take a second look at \u201cvery familiar surroundings\u201d and \u201csee the beauty that is right there in front of them.\u201d
\n\u201cSometimes you can\u2019t appreciate what is right there in front of you,\u201d she says. Life is so beautiful. When you look at nature and every attractive curve of the branch is a hidden power and force for life and it just takes time to awaken it. I want people to understand the positivity of life itself. I am interested in the twists of the branches, the twists in strength. They are like blood vessels, pulsating with energy and life. It is inside each of us. We just have to look inside.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tree branches are gnarled, bare reminders of seasons past, but spring is in the air. Soon each trunk, stem and twig will erupt in new buds, new growth, ready to give again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-29-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5gj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 11:29:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}