ARTIST'S STATEMENT

 Deaf School Topiary Park is a landscape of a painting of a landscape.  It makes reference to people in a landscape of activity, to nature and to Western cultural history.

Nature has always been a source of inspiration to the artist, and the relationship between art and life is an ongoing concern.  Seurat's painting, "A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte" is a work of art about these concerns……..about people (life) in a natural setting (a park or garden).  This is a timeless theme in Western art: the Garden of Eden, a yearning for Arcadia.

If an artist can paint a picture of a landscape……..art mimicking nature……..then why not a sculptor creating a landscape of a work of art……..nature mimicking art?  The topiary garden is both a work of art and a work of nature.  It plays on the relationships between nature, art and life.

James T. Mason

Creating the rowers