All these biophilic and pantheistic predispositions are visibly highlighted in the sensitive disposition of Simon Shemov and he approaches it and addresses it with a distinct admiration, unrelenting energy of a fascinated explorer. He approaches it in various ways and certainly not in the sense of a photographic and realistic presentation of the beauty of nature, but in the varying shapes and forms of its superiority and fascination. There is more to the visual appeal of nature than meets the eye. It includes spiral, radial, spherical, honeycomb shapes and forms, cracks, branches, lines, waves and turbulent tendencies of flow found in nature that breathe life. Branching of arteries, trees, rivers and lightning strikes; turbulence in the clouds and liquids; cracking of the skin, clay and crust; radial forms of sea creatures and stars, tree rings; the spirals in seashells, galaxies and vortices are all examples of the repetitive and mantric shapes, resembling similar and connected traces and repetitions in the cosmos. Shemov’s propensity to uncover and admire these shapes has initiated his desire to recreate them in a completely new conglomerates and agglomerates, ensuring an incentive for an evolutionary basis. There is also a mathematically abstract level of interest. Here, I will outline only one example, the golden ration of 1 : 1,618 which seems to beckon towards ratios.
Artists who revere the pantheistic worldview tend to create pieces which reflect, meditate on and replay the natural world. Shemov not only is fascinated by it but he continuously explores and searches for the ontological, biological and philosophical side of existential order and chaos simultaneously. He is inspired by it, He is inspired by it and creates mystical, phantasmagorical images and representations with which he celebrates nature in the most ingenious ways, perfecting the technique of handmade paper that he has used to create pieces, installations and objects. Fortunately, his mediating approach doesn’t end here, and this masterful artist in the past has created actions in the spirit of Land Art at different locations in Macedonia, critically reacting to colonisation of nature by man and the unscrupulous mistreatment and disturbance of the eco-balance by the most “reasonable” and “most thoughtful” (proven as such) being – man. This critical bellowing also appears in his latest cycle, considering the fact that the environmental and ecological problems have become ever more alarming.
For Shemov, as a pantheist artist, nature doesn’t only consist of sweet little creatures and breathtaking landscapes; instead, it is a nature in all its diverse self-created glory, raw elements and preferred forms, and mathematical principles hidden in them. To the pantheist, artistic endeavours are analogue to the scientific, since both strive to learn more about the natural world. Perhaps it is the scientifically credible nature. Or perhaps it is the effort to rediscover mathematical equations or creative principles that are hidden in the foundation of natural forms and are applied in the creation of completely new phenomena from which the natural world evolves.[3]
Pantheism, as one of the earliest faiths, places its greatest value on nature and the universe, and the interest in pantheism, and not only in secular nature, is the second phenomenological punctuation in the opus of Simon Shemov. The natural world is a fundamental one and deserves our utmost respect. The belief in the innate unity of all things is central to pantheism. The entire universe is a single entity that began at the same time. The entire life on Earth is inseparable, same as nature. In pantheism, the belief is that every creature deserves the equal measure of respect, because the creatures are significant cosmic nodes. Shemov sees the disentanglement of these cosmic nodes as a challenge and an inspiration that leads to the question about the cause of the beginning of the universe, the world, the bodies and living beings including people, about order and chaos that govern based on a natural order, about eternity as an inconceivable border line that will in the end determine the dimensions of time and space, as well as inter/action.
Fascination with the universe
The genesis of the universe holds the crucial information in unveiling the mysteries of our world and our place in it; and hence, these discourses caught the attention and interest of Shemov who continuously explores and attempts to find balance between art and science. The explorers, who believe that our universe was brought to life by the Big Bang or vacuum fluctuations, came up with some quite bizarre scenarios about the origin of the world. It should not be surprising then that, as Morris Kline states “the greatest science fiction stories are to be found in the study of physics”.[4]
[3] Harrison, Paul. “Pantheist art: the primacy of nature”. Pan. Issue no. 9. Autumn, 2022. 2.
[4] Kline, Morris. Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.