Winter finally loosens its hold during August in New Zealand, bringing the welcome appearance of the first blossoms on the trees and an increase in daylight time.
This month I have been reading Angie Lewin : Plants and Places. Angie Lewin is a UK printmaker whose artwork focuses on the small botanic details found in gardens and wild places, particularly East Anglia and Scotland. She depicts overlooked native weeds, dried seed heads and other plant details in a style influenced by earlier British artists and designers such as Eric Ravilious.
“As I draw the indistinguishable mass of growth, I gradually unravel the structure of individual plants and explore the patterns made by their relationships with one another.”Angie Lewin : Plants and Places p8.
Her work really appealed to me when I first came across it whilst living in England and it continues to be an inspiration. I also became interested in artwork by Mark Hearld and other British artists and designers during this time.
In London I took frequent walks in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and often visited the allotment in Kensington Gardens. This small abundant vegetable garden complete with resident chickens was a hidden oasis of calm in a city of millions.
I missed the green spaces of New Zealand and it was ironically far from these that I renewed my connection to and interest in the natural world. Perhaps if we are deprived of that connection it calls attention to it and we seek it out more urgently. Excursions to the British countryside and some of the great gardens such as the RHS garden Wisley and the arboretum at Westonbirt were highlights of my stay in England and a rich source of ideas and imagery.
Upon returning to New Zealand there has been a shift in my artwork away from abstraction towards a more direct engagement with and depiction of the natural world, using foliage to make prints directly onto paper or canvas. When collecting and utilising foliage in this way I notice the smallest details of plants – the skeletons of the leaves, the small changes in size and scale, marks and bites made by insects. The patterns start with the internal structures of the leaves themselves. One becomes acutely aware that there is a whole intricate world of detail and abundant life in just the smallest patch of garden or native bush.
This month I also had the opportunity to finish reading Tim Winton’s excellent landscape memoir, Island Home. As a child I grew up both in New Zealand and in rural Victoria. Early years in the native forests of the Dandenong ranges had a profound impact on me and I was very moved by Tim’s novel about the unique Australian landscape and his relationship to it.
“I think people everywhere yearn for connection, to be overwhelmed by beauty. Maybe, deep down, people need to feel proper scale. Perhaps in the face of grandeur we silently acknowledge our smallness, our bit-part in majesty.” Island Home, by Tim Winton p.233
I’m looking forward to the arrival of Spring and some studio time in the coming month to bring sketches and unfinished works to completion.
Celeste Sterling 