The Art of Michael Tingle

My art journey began with Celtic Art. The cunning knots, spiral and key panels mystified and defied the logical mind as to their construction. The beautiful forms hinted at secret knowledge and ancient wisdom from a time of myth & magic. Many people over look the ancient cultural art form inherited by virtue of being born with British or European blood, but it is true to say this art form contains a key to our common ancestral wisdom and offers us clues to our own inner being and the cosmos around us. To understand the art form, to copy and recreate it, is to glean insight into the minds that created it and so bring the ancestors spirit into our own being.

Once I had mastered the basic methods of construction, knotwork, spirals, key patterns and zoomorphics I went on to explore and extrapolate on the themes and develop my own style. At the heart of the Celtic style are a few simple techniques and a discipline of repetition. I’m convinced that it is the repetative nature of the form that leads to a trance like state that is conducive to opening up to the spirits that inhabit the art forms, hence the actual act of drawing leads to understanding. You don’t have to try to do anything, just copy and repeat, and so you learn.

After litertally 1000’s of hours drawing, sketching and Painting these Celtic sacred ancestral patterns, I think it has finally gone to my head.