Kyla Dante
I am a painter and earth artist, a sound practitioner, musician and a singer songwriter. My work includes large earth worked canvases that resemble ancient manuscripts and are shaped by the earth, the elements and time. I make earth books made of canvas, buried and worked in the land and site-specific works made in dialogue with the landscape. I produce oil paintings that are made in response to a reverence for nature and the environment. I use resonant sound exploration in an attempt to access an ancestral space I require to help me tune to all aspects of my life and work. The process of working in this way enables me to weave a form of personalised practical prayer with nature and feeds a need for my own spiritual enquiry. Sound deeply influences my visual art and is a continual presence throughout my creative dialogue both within my studio and in an exhibition setting.
Sound
Sound is a thread that has woven itself consistently through my life and work. Sound to me is medicine, forever and immediate. Sound is a limitless toolbox to aid us through our life and holds within it timeless wisdom. Without this connection to sound I feel ungrounded and forever search for ‘real’ moments, lost in a sea of consumer madness and pressures to live in ways that go against my common sense. To sing or use sound in a group of people provides an instant route to the heart of community and encouragement and fosters growth and healing. I feel sound is an ancestral right; a wholesome right and we should claim it.