Jason Moad

Jason Moad is a realist painter based in Melbourne, Australia.

On Oddfellows, Jason writes:

“I have never thought of myself as especially botanically minded. I was initially attracted to the succulents I have been painting and drawing because they looked so striking. Gradually, however, my interest and appreciation deepened.

Philosophically, I subscribe to a position somewhere between Panpsychism and Animism. That is to say, I think personhood is not exclusively the province of human beings. Indeed, if one starts from the perspective that consciousness is fundamental, non-human persons are to be found everywhere. This has lately been recognised in law, where certain sacred mountains and rivers are concerned in New Zealand. Even if this strikes you as a bit of a stretch, the current renaissance in botanical research is proving such startling prepositions as trees in forests communicating with each other via vast, underground mycelium networks. And a study at the University of Western Australia in 2014 demonstrated that at least some plants, despite not possessing brains or nervous systems, are none-the-less capable of learning and memory. There is also a resurgence of interest in the scientific community in plant psychedelics, like psilocybin-mushrooms and ayahuasca and their effects on and interactions with consciousness.

Although my initial interest was aesthetic, from the very first Agave I painted, instinctively I recognised their potential to represent “the other” the non-human presence and over time these musings about personhood and consciousness merged with and began to enrich and inform the work. Whether I portray them intruding into domestic settings through portal-like mirrors or represent them in almost pseudo-portraits, they loom likeTriffids; self possessed and with their own agency.”