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Tree art tribute to USC academic
An award-winning artist from America lecturing and researching at the University of the Sunshine Coast has received an unusual honour in England.
A six-metre-high wooden sculpture in the seaside town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight has been named after Phyllis Araneo, who lectures in Environment and Design at USC.
“Phyllis’s Green Man” is the name of the piece by renowned English wood sculptor Paul Sivell, who recycles dying or dead trees with no economic value into art.
“I’m honoured because many of my own paintings have been inspired by nature, ever since I moved to Australia in the 1990s from environmentally-degraded New Jersey and saw the colours of the landscape,” Ms Araneo said.
“This is certainly a most interesting outcome of my USC Master of Creative Arts!”
Mr Sivell was one of 10 international artists that Ms Araneo interviewed for her University thesis on the topic of the re-emergence of the ancient “Green Man” image in contemporary, western, visual culture.
It investigated the meanings and changing representations of the part human, part plant image throughout history.
She said Paul’s in-depth answers were profound and he appreciated her academic examination of the artistic element.
Ms Araneo, whose background is in art directing in Manhattan, exhibited a collection of the Green Man paintings at the USC Gallery in 2006.
Mr Sivell, whose sculptures are found across Britain, Europe and America, said he usually named them after locations.
“But on this occasion, he will be called Phyllis’s Green Man after a kindred spirit who has been touched by the same green energy as I,” he said.
– Julie Gatehouse