Each month one of our Directors chooses an art.earth member to become ‘Artist of the Month’. What follows is a conversation with that artist, together with some examples of his or her work.
Earth Paintings
What are you currently working on?
I am currently in the last few months of a Fine Art degree at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee so the focus just now is on the degree show. This will be a distillation and refinement of my plant prints and will have a quiet, reflective quality. At this very moment in time I am installing a solo exhibition, Plant Prints & Earth Paintings at An Tobar on the Isle of Mull. This shows some of the work I have developed over the last four years that I now call Edaphic Plant Art. It is the development of plant printing techniques that I term, The Pigment Print, The Graphite Print, and the Ink Print. In these prints I consider that the plants have ‘drawn’ themselves. The prints are accompanied by simple paintings using soil.
Plant Sculptures
How would you describe your practice?
My practice is focused on wild plants that generate spontaneously, usually referred to as ‘weeds’, and the soil. The complete forms of these plants, their pigments, materials, and growth are what I focus on and their relationship with the soil. By looking deeply into these plant forms with awe and reverence I am seeking to understand something universal about life and our place within that. My method is very experimental and intuitive and the experiential learning that I am gaining about this aspect of the natural world is the fundamental driver of my practice. It is all about honing my own senses and perception by slowing down and becoming still then sensing, noticing, and tuning-in to the plants in their environment.
Pigment print on cloth
Who (or what) are your influences?
My primary influence in the art world is Herman de Vries who too is interested in showing us nature as it is, inviting us to contemplate that. The Scottish artists Dalziel + Scullion too consider our sensory experience of the natural world and our relationship to all life forms.
Since the development of my own practice I have become interested to learn more about nature printing, plant morphology, plant pigments, and soil science. Darwin’s weed patch experiments, Leonardo da Vinci’s plant prints, and Goethe’s plant studies and unconventional scientific approach have surprised and intrigued me.
I am also interested in the evolution of psychogeography into the practice of walking as art; the spiritual wisdom of those who revere the earth; the space between the natural sciences and art; the refinement of our senses and intuition; and in experimentation.
Spontaneous plants
My recent academic dissertation has condensed some of my current thinking and serves as a starting point for greater study.
Some more links
Tina’s Living Field