Osman, Still life with marigolds So often Nature surpasses the awe that one can encounter anywhere else. The tangibility, the smell, the touch of its supple, organic elements brings the senses to new heights. A common theme to so many artists of all range of style, its a wonder why Nature itself isn't celebrated more in a gallery setting. I am contemplating arranging a show of the most beautiful tomatoes grown or cluster of grapes straight from the vine or perhaps the most ridiculously perfect blade of grass... why not? Perhaps, because Nature goes beyond the outside of the mere beauty to the eye, perhaps the most important element is the taste, nutrients and overall health of the plant-- relating the experience of beauty in the proverbial, "beauty is only skin deep". Beauty in the sense of the romanticized beauty found in art, that is. Health is what remains after the engineered beauty that we are so often enraptured by in the supermarket dissipates in the tastelessness, nutritionlessness of a genetically modified "fruit". Perhaps Nature, so complex, is not ready for the gallery setting. Or perhaps, you and I the gallery-goers, need to be prepared for the Truth in the Beauty of the "beautiful" store-bought tomato.

nature through the eyes of Osman