HOMEAGE TO EARTH - TREVOR NOTT

 Trevor Nott is a nature lover and conservationist, a plant ecologist, a self-taught architect and designer, a visionary and last but not least an artist – which he bizarrely doesn’t aspire to be. But he has no choice in the matter, he is an artist by nature! 

“What earth manages to make sustainably available in a raw form can be transformed into something quite different. Human beings can relate to this transformation on many levels” is a philosophy that Trevor Nott believes in deeply and describes in his own words.

Trevor is without a doubt a visionary with a clear focus on creating something novel. “I get an idea, and I think about how I am going to depict it. I create a concept and then I make it”, he says. Sometimes he also just makes something because it works. The process is never the same.  

The artist never takes wood from a living tree; it is always wood that nature has decided to lay bare. “I believe that when using a natural resource to create a piece, the result should be more meaningful than it is in its natural state. Wood that lies out there in the desert is exquisite where it is – in fact, there couldn’t be a better gallery.” 

The stones that the artist uses add texture to the sculptures and even they are chosen with precision. He says: “When you go and collect stones you have to be very mindful because everything you remove leaves a gap and has consequences.” Support, one of the stone sculptures showing at the exhibition, is held upright only with metal. It has an exemplary shape in which single stones spiral around a center piece that is also only made up of single stones. It looks like the stones are floating, held by a barely visible metal structure.

When Trevor tackles a project he becomes fully submerged in the process. He dives into his own world, focusing entirely on the task at hand. It gives him peace, joy and a deep sense of fulfillment. His work is simple and abstract and inspired by art from Africa, especially Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya. Looking back at the works he has done he can see that the objects often mirror what is going on in his life or reflect an issue he is faced with. 

Trevor Nott’s artworks are humbling, they reflect respect for the natural environment and his passion for making things with his own hands. The time taken to admire an art piece seems trivial in comparison to the time that it takes to make it. To own a Trevor Nott art piece takes you back to basics and it makes you realise that the greatest gift you can give yourself is to keep things simple, stay focused and persevere.

With this exhibition the artist gives tribute and expresses gratitude to nature and the gifts it gives that were millions of years in the making. Trevor describes his experiences in the desert as: “When you travel around the desert it does something to you – it humbles you.”