Olivia Drake: Could you introduce yourself and what you do for JANE PRIVÉE readers?
Heath Wae: I’m a multidisciplinary artist working within the medium of painting, sculpture, and installation. For the past few years, my work has been exploring the realms of consciousness, dreams, esoteric wisdom, and earth-based animism. Using materials often found, foraged, and of natural origins, my works aim to evoke a sense of connection—a returning to unity with the planet.

What is your creative process and the materials you use? 
For some time, my main materiality has been earth pigments. These pigments have quite a course and intense chroma, being predominantly just ground rock. I’ve found a real connection to the earth through using these materials and have noticed that the pigments seem to have their own story to tell. Due to the intensity of the materials themselves, my process is more reductive and minimal, allowing the energetics of the materials themselves to hold the works. 

How does working with natural elements influence your practice?
I’ve had these really interesting experiences through working with minerals where I’ll be painting a work and I will be overcome with an intense emotion or find my train of thought following a clear line or pattern, sometimes it’s just a detached dreamlike state. I decided to investigate some of the materials, especially the mineral or crystal-based pigments, and I found that in the more esoteric schools of thought, quite often what I was experiencing was a common reaction to the stones. 

Since this realisation, I decided that perhaps I should honour the story of the stones a little more and really bring that energetic system into the works themselves. As a result, the paintings started to become talismanic, they started to contain the energetics of the story I was portraying. It felt as though I was more of the conduit or the tool that the stones were using to express themselves. It’s been a great way to remove myself as the ‘artist’ from the process. 

Why is the elemental so intrinsic to your work? 
I guess fundamentally the elemental is intrinsic to everything, so when you have these templates i.e., elements, you can really hold the expression of the work together. The elements become a balancing point for the work, they each hold weight and direction [so] in many ways [they] create an infrastructure for the work. Drinking tea on a ceremonial level has taught me this in a deeper way. The tea plants require the earth, the mineral, and the nutrients to grow, but also the water to sprout and feed, then again, the wind and air to create structure, then of course lastly, the sun—fire—to feed and stay warm and photosynthesise. Everything requires a balance of these core elements to survive, and I guess in many ways my work is [an] homage to these natural processes. When you incorporate these forces and elements you’re creating with the building blocks of life, the energy of the universe. 

How does the energy of these minerals influence vibrationally and aesthetically the piece of work? 
Well, everything vibrates at a certain frequency—matter is the universe vibrating at a slow enough frequency that we can interact with it. So you have these objects that are dense and, in many ways, we would say they are ‘still’ but in reality, everything is in a state of flux. You speed up time and all of a sudden, those rocks and mountains are growing and falling, eroding and compacting, constantly changing. So I found that when you use these stones or minerals or crystals, you're allowing so much energy to move around in a short space of time that would otherwise take these materials millennia. These deep frequencies and vibrational elements hold that energy in the works and, as a viewer, you can witness this in the paintings. 

Can you expand on how the pigments reveal themselves to you?
Ochres and pigments are generally really rich in chroma, largely because of the iron content and the process of heating and compacting over time. Most pigments have a level of intensity that can be a little overwhelming, so I use a process of reduction to allow the work to reveal itself. Generally, there is a short window of time between the wet pigment on the work and the solvents [having] their interaction. So the work’s base layers take place quickly. Then it’s the dance of composition, working out what works with the story of the frequency of the materials. 

What attracts you to painting?
In many ways the tactile nature of it. It's visceral, hands-on, and immediate. I find that helps to operate in a meditative state. Getting to watch the movements and changes in the works in real-time, guiding materials and being guided by them is in many ways reserved in its immediacy to painting. 

Your work is deeply meditative. Tell me a little bit about how you formed the spiritual perspective you have now and how art, nature, and poetry are entangled in this?
I’ve always been interested in the spaces in between and have spent a lot of time working with practices that honour these spaces. There is a connective line that runs between so many of these practices that really helps me to see the universality of energetics. Working with plant medicines, esoteric arts, meditation, bonsai, and tea, among many other [things], has always offered me openings into different realms of being. Working out how to hold those frequencies in daily life becomes the real task and so bringing ritual in on an everyday level informs a lot of my practice. Nature is always holding its frequency; it is we humans that have learned to separate from that, and I feel it's become our biggest shortcoming. This separation has created so much of our illness. So I'm cultivating ways to bring myself back and, at the same time, showing my process in the form of art. Poetry does this often also, it’s allowing oneself to see beyond and it opens a space that is beyond knowing—a space of deep feeling.

You note influences from shamanism, plant medicine, tarot, tea, and bonsai—how have you come to learn about these practices and how do they interact with your everyday routine?  
So often one practice informs and leads into another. As I was saying, there is a thread that runs between so many of these practices and so learning or understanding them becomes easier and easier as they grow. More recently the learnings have been through mentors or elders who I interact with and so they will mention work they have done or rituals they use, and I’ll exercise them in my routine. Certain things stick as a daily practice and others come and go. I think when you are listening to yourself, you know what is working and what should stay.

I get the sense that tea is a vital component of your life. How did you come by this practice and what does it entail? 
Tea is one of those practices which flows well in my day. Coming out of the morning dreaminess into tea and meditation is so beneficial. It’s grounding and gentle, whilst invigorating the body, mind, and spirit. I came to tea through a number of channels but the most prominent one was actually through the deep appreciation of tea ware. I found a teapot which is still one of my favourites in my collection and thought, ‘wow, I want to learn the way of this object’. From there, little by little my knowledge and experience grew. 

I’m predominantly drinking pu-erh tea, white tea, red tea, and oolongs at the moment. The teas are profound for meditation and a great way to offer yourself a moment of retreat in your day. There is so much to share on this, so I recommend finding a space to sit with tea and the tea will teach you best. Alternatively, I serve tea a few times a week and if you are ever visiting the Northern Rivers, get in touch.

You recently had your solo show ‘Come In Good Spirits’ at The Dot Project in London. What were you exploring in these pieces and how has this body of work felt different to your previous collections?
I wanted to bring more poetics and texts into these works because I had found myself so enamoured by the use of language as a tool for spirituality. Language is so often how we learn from each other, and it operates in a different part of the mind than the visuality of art. I found by joining these elements, each plays a part to evoke a grander understanding. The works were informed by a lot of tea drinking and Buddhist texts. There was a vein of serenity and beauty that ran through these works, and I wanted the works to really float together in dialogue. 

Of your collection, you write: ‘I wanted to create a work to act as a talisman to meditate with, a connection to the land of pure bliss.’ What directed this piece you are speaking of? 
I found through drinking tea that meditating with ceremonial purpose allows oneself to drop deeper into that state. It's like a moving meditation in many ways and [is] aided by the Qi of the tea itself. 

I like practices that invoke external and more human elements as a vessel for deep meditation or journeying. 

In Rajasthan, India there were tantric disciples who created these minimal paintings on found paper, which were imbued with the energy of deities. The paintings were used as tools for meditation, they embodied the energy of the gods and so allowed the devotee to connect with that spirit. 

So, in many ways, combining this moving meditation into an object (talisman) allows the energetics to be carried for the viewer. 

Tell me about the act of visual prayer and how it informed your latest works? 
Someone once said to me that worrying is praying for what you don’t want. That stuck with me for many reasons, though in many ways I realised that what we put into our minds and our thoughts becomes our reality. So our thoughts create our worlds and our thoughts are prayers in this way. These works are prayers for humanity and our world. Odes to our potential and reminders of our beauty, our wisdom, and our oneness. 

You use mythopoetic writing as a medium combined with the visual. Can you expand more on this process and how it interacts with the artwork? 
Myths are a great tool for growth—we take a protagonist who experiences some degree of a life-changing journey, and we understand the narrative of that story. When we understand, we place ourselves in the story and so the myth becomes a vessel for our own learning. The mythopoetic nature is to evoke a state of mind rather than a story. It opens something within us that we feel beyond understanding directly. Incorporating this into my work was a tool for me to place myself in this state of mind and to render it as I felt it. 

You recently became a father, how has this shifted your lens as an artist and how has your process adapted to this?
Becoming a father has been a priority check and a constant recalibration. It’s a lesson of integrity that is unwavering. I’ve found [that] the more time I spend with my family and honouring my need for space of retreat, the more the creativity flows. I spend less time in the studio, yet somehow make more work. Being a parent removes a lot of the unnecessary things from your life—you just don’t have time for it so you create more space for the things that feel important. 

Your wife Tais Rose Wae is also an artist. What would an average day at home with your family look like?
Every day starts with a tea ceremony [and] our son has a little wooden tea set [that] he plays with while we drink tea. We are thankful to have been drinking tea since his arrival, so I guess he just assumes it’s as normal as breakfast. After tea, we usually spend some time in the sun and wander the garden, water the bonsais, and make a plan for the day. Usually [this involves some time at the] beach, surfing, bushwalking, or something outdoors. If I don’t head to the studio, then we will usually make space to do something creative together while our son naps. Lately, we’ve been making clay sculptures while listening to a book or podcast. [In] the afternoon, we’ll take our son to the park and let him expel some energy. Usually, each one of us will make space for the other to nourish somehow.

Beautiful! So I’m wondering what the word reverence means to you? 
Reverence is like a bow to the world. Not like a nod downward, but a real full body mind and spirit bow of gratitude. To be humbled and enamoured at the same time by the sheer magnificence of something or everything. 

Do you have an altar space in your studio or home? 
I do have a few—the tea table or Chaxi is always set up as an altar, it's a way to connect the tea ceremony with the cosmos. Outside of this, my whole house expands on this by being a bit of an energetic field. Space is so important and so valuable that if I'm choosing to replace the space with something, well it better be more valuable than the space itself. This works as well with the mind. The stillness of mind is what we want, so what am I putting inside to replace the stillness?

Funnily enough, I hadn’t actually made a direct altar space in my studio, I just had practices that I would do for cleansing before I worked. Recently I was in Indonesia, and I went to see a dukun or shaman who gave me some strict guidelines of what my studio was lacking energetically for an altar space. So now I am building an altar [that] needs daily offerings of a candle, flowers, bitter coffee, bread, water, banana, and a sweet candy. This is to feed the spirit of the lands on which my studio sits. 

As a creative, what is your relationship to rest and what does it look like for you? 
I think the cleaning, clearing, resting, restoring, healing work is as intrinsic to my practice as the painting itself. So finding spaciousness to rest is a priority. If it's not drinking tea, it's bonsai or going to the sauna. Usually once every month or so I’ll create space to sit in ceremony also. This is usually a deep cleanse and offers myself a way to feel more rested in my being even if things are busy. 

When did you last feel overcome by joy? 
Most days when I’m drinking tea there is at least a moment of joyousness. Feeling truly overcome by joy though would have perhaps been the birth of our son.

When was the last time you were completely overcome with laughter? 
We like to laugh a lot in our home. It’s such great medicine and one I really learnt to appreciate from the Balinese. They say laughter is the healing for shame, and guilt, and worry, so when something strong happens I prefer to laugh at it and transmute any of those deep low vibrational emotions. When we were travelling, we tried to be in a state of play a lot and while playing games or doing family activities we were often overcome with laughter. 

What is your favourite art piece at the moment from another maker and why is it so special to you? 
I supported some healing work held by a Native American chief recently and she shared how the design of the work was art for so many reasons. I realised that my labelling of art was so limited and that this healing work was art in so many ways. I think with this idea of shamanism, and especially her work within that field, I learnt that shamans are artists who are creating worlds. I just love that idea and I think we are all shamans creating our worlds in some ways. So I guess in a roundabout way, that is my favourite art piece haha. 

Could you leave us with a line of mythopoetics relating to our theme holiness… 
Breathing in the holiness of life, breathing out the wisdom of laughter.

fin.

Images by Natalie McComas