Gilles Rainville illustration

  CHOICES As the dominating race, our species affects every aspect of the natural world we are part of. In consequence, some of the choices we make create chain reactions that have changed the world, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. This series of pastel artworks explores some of these choices many people make daily in the hopes of inspiring thoughtful consideration and understanding of the domino effect our choices necessitate. HOW DO WE GET THERE? This first piece explores our choice of transportation. Choosing our vehicle influences the choice of where we live, how much we pollute, and how much freedom we have. Cars became a class symbol, and a desired item in the 1940s. Eighty years later, most of the population still regards them the same way. This piece is meant as a reflection of a choice that often seems automatic when we are growing up. This piece was started last summer (2019) in a smaller format without creating any thumbnails to explore the compositional posi...

"The concept of a  tree of life  is a widespread archetype  in the world's m ythologies , related to the concept of s acred tree  more generally,  and hence in religious  and p hilisophical  tradition." Wikipedia, 2017 You can find a myth or belief of a great tree serving as a symbol of the cycle of life everywhere: Yggdrasil in Norse mythology, the Persian myth of the Gaokerena world tree from ancient Iran, the acacia tree of Iusaaset from ancient Egypt, the Etz Chaim in Judaism, the Bodhi tree from the Buddhist tradition, the tree of life from Christian faith. The World on the Turtle's Back from the Iroquois tradition was created by planting bark from the tree of life.  I had started an ambitious drawing representing this idea eight years ago. At the time I was not ready to accomplish something of that magnitude. And so, it was started but never finished. Stored in the closet, moving from home to home but never thrown out....