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"Since 1993 I have paid homage to Jean François Millet 's
The Gleaners (1857) to convey my environmental
concerns.

The Gatherer theme began as an image of 'holding;'
holding onto what is disappearing, what is in the
process of being lost to us all and to future generations.

T.S.Eliot 's poem, Preludes IV contains the lines:

'The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.'

The 'vacant lot' is,to me, an image of the loss in
our environment.

The paintings Silent Fields -The Gatherer are
metaphysical spaces for celebration and contemplation.
The field is a pictorial field, a field of energy,matter,
earth, night and light, abundance and loss. These
are symbolic fields as visual poetic spaces.

This series of works begins at a point in time,
creating a fictional dialogue with Millet, a painter of
mythic rural symbols, whose connection to the land
had a deep authenticity so rare today, when
'connecting' seems tenuous on many levels as
technology invades and separates us not only from
ourselves but from the earth.

Those who fight environmental battles are the
marginalized, as were the gleaners of Millet's time in
the mid-1800s; existing on the edge,and surviving in
open woodlands and fields. They were living in
times of change and shifts from country to city of
rural populations.

The changes experienced in our times are more
troubling as our earth becomes threatened space,
where deceptively beautiful landscape can mask great
loss of biodiversity and the disappearing bushland
itself, as experienced here in the dwindling central
Victorian grey box forests.

We gather to us words that have deep meaning to
our existence.The light is gathered from the gold of
summer grasses,images are gathered that hold the
mystery in the symbols themselves.

The Gathering Cloths are tied and bundled with The
Knot being humanity 's first shaping device.These
are the ritual gathering cloths in the silent fields.
These paintings ask the question: "What can still be
retrieved to restore the sacred balance?"

Wendy Stavrianos,2004