Description: HeartTrees.ca is the online gallery of digital artwork by Chris Whitside. Designs are based on the simplest and most iconic fractal - the heart tree.
design (75564) digital (14712) 3d (9252) artwork (6959) trees (1617) geometry (303) sacred (272) fractals (127) hearttrees heart trees
Nature is wild with wondrous complexity. Nevertheless, every creature, rock, tangled growth, swirling current and twisted terrain has a very simple essense: a fractal recipe for evolving. The heart tree is a fractal that is both simple and symbolic of this essense. I think that makes it an icon to be revered and shared.
Since long ago forsaking traditional religion I felt a need to fill the emotional void left behind. I missed the sense of mystery and awe in religion, which offered a kind of natural high. But I also missed the icons, the rituals, the uplifting music, the ornamentation, and all the other trappings so important to a soulful life. Most of all I missed the sense of communion, the feeling shared with others that I was part of a loving, extended family.
I sought to recapture some of those religious feelings in science, metaphysics, evolutionary psychology, systems thinking, and comparative religious studies. And, to an extent I did find analogs of timeless soulfulness, community love and devotion to something greater than myself - without resorting to magical thinking. In the world of fractal mathematics, I found my secular totem: the fractal heart tree.