LAYERS AND LIGHT
Integral to processes of science and art are tensions of entropy and order, and predictability and surprise. This body of work is the culmination of immersive explorations with plants and other found objects on my walks in the wonderful diversity of wild in which I live - from urban 'jungles' to hidden forests. Flowers from 'weeds' in unkempt parking spaces, rusty nails and not-yet-known-to-me botanicals all are potential sources of colour and are worthy of experimentation.
The work moves between a rational mind’s need to unravel the powers and mysteries of the natural world and those moments of acquiescence when mind accepts its limited computational skills to simply marvel at the explosions of patterns and images that emerge.
My experiments have led to a series of eco-prints created by dyeing paper with leaves, bark, roots, berries and lichens which are further transformed by processing with different found metals.
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Eco-print 1, 2019. Natural dye on paper, 58 x 14 cm
Eco-print 2, 2022. Natural dye on paper, 58 x 14 cm
Eco-print 3, 2022. Natural dye on paper, 58 x 14 cm
Back-lighting the eco-prints raises consciousness of the multi-layers that make up the prints and further enhances the multitudes of colours within the print.
Eco-print detail - Natural dye on artist's paper
In 2023 some of my fabric ecoprints took to the wind and were blown from Africa to Ireland where they featured in the Goath Site Specific Sculpture Trail in Sneem (8-30 July).
CREDITS
Video: Mark Wilby
Editing and Sound Design: Lea Timmermans
The full work includes three additional elements:
It is accompanied by a series of films concerned with moments of first inspiration - the world of sight and sound that surrounds, and weaves through, an observer’s consciousness - that glimpse of something wonderous at the periphery of sight and hearing.
Secondly, there are a series of photographs, displaying layers and colours amongst decaying leaves.
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Lastly, I show the ‘building’ of the eco-prints. These provide windows on the science of the work giving glimpses into the chemistry of dyeing. With these, I share part of my experience of the processes of translation from one reality to another.
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Overall this is a story of experiment, control and letting go; of creativity, curiosity, transformation and emergence; and of illuminating the layering and complexity (both physical and conceptual) embodied by the search for meaning that is integral to both science and art.