In 2021, when Paul and Michèle began working together, they started off tentatively. Michèle’s photographs reminded Paul of studying geology which he loved. He nervously and cautiously started making marks on them. Michèle encouraged him to become more bold. Which he did.
Paul and Michèle had really liked each other’s work on Instagram for a long time. She invited him to paint on to her images and he enthusiastically agreed.
The cautious British man and the more liberated Dutch woman began experimenting. Over time, it has become easier and more organic and has developed into a symbiotic relationship in which each are inspired by the thoughts and actions of the other. It is a partnership which has a rhythm and a movement.
They are now about to exhibit their new joint work in the blooming Hotel in Bergen. It is large, bold, unapologetic and celebrates life: nature and human life are treated as the same because they are.
They are freeing themselves up to express what they really feel and know. Humans are part of the natural world just as much as any other part of it. The problems that humanity is now confronting are the result of ignoring this oneness with nature. We need to return to it.
The work explores many aspects of this relationship between the natural world and humanity. It engages with both our fraught and difficult tensions with it and the embrace of the whole. And everything in between.
Nature is not here for us to admire, observe or control. We make it as it makes us. It is a symbiotic relationship although many societal and political leaders would deny it. For them, we are the masters of nature. It is this thinking that is leading us to the brink of disaster. But there is still time and hope.
The exhibition at blooming is celebrating the now. While we know, as humans, we have lots of things to face and change, we also know that this needs to be done in a natural partnership with the environment. Working together with the natural world and not trying to control it.
So, their work celebrates, asks some questions, engages and moves with a natural rhythm and an appreciation of the beautiful.
A definition of a symbiotic relationship is: “a mutually beneficial interaction in which both symbionts contribute to each other’s support.” While this cannot be without problems, conflicts, fractures and setbacks, it is the only way that we can progress as humans if we want to survive.
The joint artwork of Michèle and Paul reflects these ideas and others in many and diverse ways.
Polak and Allender have exhibited in both Paris and Amsterdam on a number of occasions. Both are artist members of Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam.
