A friend of mine has a shelf of antique books organized in rows, with spines, titles and covers all facing the wall and paper edges facing out. The books aren’t for reading. Instead, their gilded pages catch and reflect the room’s light as if the shelves held bars of solid gold. My eyes are drawn to them every time I visit, not just for their beauty, but also for the way gold leaf can transform a simple object into one of value and beauty.

Gold has such power in meaning. The determined efforts of alchemists to turn lead into gold has rich symbolism of psychological transformation. The gilded halos of icons and gold stars on deep blue vaulted chapel ceilings in Europe signify a purity and holiness in the heavenly images. And in Buddhism, the individual act of applying a small square of gold leaf is a ritual that, with accumulated acts of devotion, leaves sacred objects and sculptures adorned in reverence.

One of my favourite moments on a trip to Bodh Gaya, was the discovery of a small statue graced with squares of gold. Around the corner from the sacred Bodhi Tree, devotees were applying gold leaf to figures on the outer walls of the temple. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to be moved by this reverential ritual.

Much of my earlier art has explored ritual. I have made marks and created objects in ritualized repetition or in seeming acts of devotion to create a rhythm or to add a depth of meaning to a piece. Often the materials have been natural, simple, or age-old in quality, making reference to the place of ritual in human culture throughout history and across continents. Working with fire, ashes, tied string, folded paper, beeswax, rust, earth, and even blood, I have created works that make allusions or direct references to rituals of various traditions. Gold leaf holds a particular importance in these works, adding layers of meaning to ordinary materials and balancing sombre themes with light, hope, and beauty.

Gold can represent light, fire, or the sun. It signifies wealth, royalty and holiness. It is dense and heavy, but dances in the eye with a weightless quality. It doesn’t tarnish and so can represent purity or perfection. Gold is the material of transformation. It has an other-worldly quality, with the ability to suggest another time and place. And of course it’s use draws to mind all of the many sacred objects and rituals of the world’s religious traditions.

Paul Roorda, Evidence of Sky II, End papers, gold leaf, ribbon and watch hands on paper, 11.5 x 14.5 inches, 2015.

The act of using gold leaf in my art has been necessarily ritualistic. Gold leaf is surprisingly thin and light. It requires a slow and gentle touch to handle. Moving the hand too quickly sees the gold leaf ripple and fold over itself, so each moment must be deliberate. I have learned to hold my breath while lifting small squares of gold leaf to my art, the simple act of breathing enough to cause it to float away to the floor. And the act of setting it in place requires a single confident motion. Once it touches the warmed beeswax or the tacky sizing it has found its place and can’t be adjusted.

Sometimes I have felt that it was like cheating, to use such a beautiful and meaningful material in my art, as if I ought to be trying to accomplish the same powerful effect with pencil or paint. But my work is all about the power of material, the story of an object, and the meaning of an action. So I keep a supply of gold leaf close at hand in my studio, ready for the moment that a piece of art calls for the beautiful, ethereal, expressive material that gold is.

Paul Roorda, Night Gold, crushed stone, gold leaf, rust,and beeswax on paper on board, 44 x 22 inches, 2013.