Clayton is an award-winning photographer and video journalist, who has also been a mixed media artist since 2016. He was a finalist in the Fine Art Category of the London International Creative Awards 2021 with Imaginata Australis.



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Clayton John

<h4>CLAYTON JOHN‘s latest series, Larapinta Dreaming, was inspired by a fundraising walk on the Larapinta Trail in northern Australia, near Alice Springs and Uluru. Clayton is currently showing these artworks at the Linton &amp; Kay Gallery in Subiaco, Perth, Australia. You can also visit his work on Instagram at @clayton_images.</h4><hr><h3>AN ART ESSAY</h3><hr>In July 2022, I walked the Larapinta Trail in the center of Australia near Alice Springs. It was a fundraising walk for the environmental NGO, The Climate Council.<img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/larapinta_dreaming2_8a168a7253.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T06:14:12.639Z" alt="">The Larapinta, which literally means “salty water” in Arrernte (the local Indigenous language), is thought to be the oldest riverbed on planet Earth. Some of the gorges on the trail are home to up to 60,000 rock carvings or petroglyphs, made by the first Australians during two distinct time periods – 10,000 years ago and 3,000 years ago. They made these carvings by hitting one rock with another and gradually chipping away at a large flat rock surface.<hr><hr><h4>To honor nature is to honor ourselves,&nbsp; honor in equality and reverence&nbsp; rather than in dominance.</h4><hr><hr>The really fascinating thing is the idea that the same creation stories have been told on that country for all that time. The characters in the stories and the petroglyphs are the same as those told to young Arrernte girls and boys today.&nbsp; The tjukurrpa (dreamtime story) of the Arrernte revolves around the caterpillar as the central creation being.&nbsp; This got me thinking of the story of Kakabhushundi, the sage in the ancient Hindu texts who transformed into a crow and chose to live out his days in that form. He was the first person to narrate the Ramayana and, being immortal, will remain alive on Earth until the end of its existence.&nbsp;These parallel stories got me thinking just how circumscribed our creativity and inventiveness have become under our modern systems of education – why not a crow or a caterpillar as the central character in our texts?&nbsp; How human-centric have we made this world, removed farther and farther from nature. When once nature was the grand narrator (and animator) of our ancient cultures of this Earth, now it is humans. How we have strayed from the source…<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/larapinta_dreaming3_986d423917.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T06:15:38.227Z" alt="larapinta-dreaming3"><hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/larapinta_dreaming5_c75b9654e5.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T06:16:21.057Z" alt="larapinta-dreaming5"><hr>The comment of one of my spiritual Guides, Chariji, “God made man in His image whereas the tragedy of the modern world is that man has made God in his image,” comes quickly to mind.How fitting then is the Principle, “Simplify your life so as to be identical with Nature.” It strikes me as the quintessential call of the hour. To honor nature is to honor ourselves, honor in equality and reverence rather than in dominance.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/larapinta_dreaming6_7b44e3d601.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-13T06:17:14.135Z" alt="larapinta-dreaming6"><hr><hr><h4>Artworks by CLAYTON JOHN</h4><hr>

Larapinta dreaming

<h4>CLAYTON JOHN writes about his approach to art and spirituality and the techniques he is using to create his latest series, Imaginata Australis.</h4><hr><h2>An Art Essay</h2><hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/imaginata_australis2_9f098e096f.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:07:05.067Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>A wise person once told me that the artistic inclination stands just shy of the spiritual. Unfortunately, for many years I perceived that comment in a negative light, construing it to mean something akin to “a pursuit of the artistic is less than ideal and hence pointless.”&nbsp;As I’ve grown older, I’ve slowly come to see that it is, in fact, the necessary integration of the artistic aspects of myself that permits expansion into the spiritual realm. It is as if the artistic is the apex of the material manifestation, accepting the limitations of that realm.As a consequence, I accept myself as also being limited. This is okay. It means I can fly free into my spiritual self.&nbsp;It has been a gift to accept the limited self through art, and in so doing, permit the unlimited self, the spiritual self, to fly unshackled. If, by grace, treasures from the&nbsp;brighter side are brought back, they might be rendered material.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/imaginata_australis3_0dd6ecb922.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:08:16.415Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>Currently I am creating a series of works that I see as “landscapes of the mind.”&nbsp;The series is called Imaginata Australis, which translates as Imaginary Southern Land.&nbsp;It was prompted by&nbsp;the Covid lock down and the realities of circumscribed travel.&nbsp;<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/imaginata_australis4_198aa27518.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:09:15.111Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>I began to experiment, starting with the creation of backgrounds, for which I use a variety of mediums – plaster, slacked lime, oxide washes and pigment washes.&nbsp;I also began to “build” trees using whatever caught my eye on the permitted daily walks.&nbsp;I would cover these bush pickings with beeswax, then use metallic gold pigment to rub into the wax, so that a high, golden sheen remained.&nbsp;I would then photograph these tree elements and the created backgrounds.&nbsp;I then bring them together into a digital collage.&nbsp;<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/imaginata_australis5_b2c8c361c3.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:10:14.695Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr>The fusion of elements that often stand at odds with each other is an aspect that attracts me in life, just as much as in art. Trying to make the disparate whole goes for myself as much as for the world outside.<hr><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/imaginata_australis6_4416c4749b.jpg?updated_at=2023-04-11T12:11:21.199Z" alt="">&nbsp;<hr><hr><h4>Art by CLAYTON JOHN</h4><hr>