Nature, spiritual practices inspire Greenfield art exhibit

By BELLA LEVAVI

Staff Writer

Published: 03-29-2023 3:16 PM

Littleton, New Hampshire artist Adhi Two Owls is bringing her work to Greenfield with an exhibit featuring works in various mediums that blend her spiritual practice and curiosity for the world around her.

Two Owls’ exhibit, “Topographies and Other Surface Tensions,” is on display at Goose Divine Energy’s art gallery at 223 Main St. The opening reception will take place on Friday, March 31, from 5 to 8 p.m. during the monthly Greenfield Arts Walk.

Goose Divine Energy owner Astranada Gamsey described Two Owls’ work as a playful use of sacred geometry that creates pieces that are “astoundingly beautiful and relevant to nature.”

“We hung the show a little while back. I have gotten to sit with it and I really enjoy it,” Gamsey said. “I am excited for others to enjoy it as well.”

While she is a classically trained artist who studied painting and sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute, Two Owls works in a variety of mediums.

“Art makes us question who we are and why we are here,” Two Owls said.

In addition to line drawings, her art includes animals depicted as religious icons.

“Drawing is a process of discovery,” Two Owls said, speaking about her brightly colored ink washes and line drawings. “It is my discussion with the paper.”

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Along with being a practicing artist, Two Owls is also a shaman. Her Buddhist spiritual practice inspires her art, including a daily exercise of drawing that she described as similar to writing in a diary.

“The process of drawing is wrestling with my own angst,” Two Owls said. “It opens up channels to something beautiful and divine.”

Two Owls described shamanism as a practice of communicating with the world around us — something that humans have been disconnected from, she said. Two Owls uses her art to recreate this lost connection.

She described the use of “sacred geometry” or natural patterns — such as the Fibonacci sequence and other complex patterns found in plants and water — as a recognition of the serenity and chaos that exists in nature.

“I work with that,” she said.

Two Owls’ interest in the natural world as well as a love for complex mathematical theories comes out uniquely in each piece of work as she plays with the border of these two complex concepts.

For three years before the COVID-19 pandemic, Two Owls traveled across the country seeing the vast expanse of nature as well as meeting many people similar to and different from her. She explained her artwork now created in New Hampshire reflects that experience of travel.

Two Owls also pointed to sculptor and environmentalist Andy Goldsworthy, abstract painter Mark Rothko and musician Philip Glass as inspirations for her work.

This exhibit’s opening reception is part of the much larger Greenfield Arts Walk, started last year by Madhouse Multi-Arts with a goal of growing the creative community and economy, that happens on the last Friday of every month. Other participating venues include Madhouse Multi-Arts, Looky Here, Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center, Green Fields Market, Greenfield Community Television, The Finch Gallery, Greenfield Gallery, 10 Forward, Mesa Verde, The Balkan Lounge and Smitty’s Pub.

Bella Levavi can be reached at 413-930-4579 or blevavi@recorder.com.

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