Posts Tagged ‘plants’

THE WAYWARD PLANTS REGISTRY

Participating Artists/Designers:
Heather Ring
Amy Seek
Alison Scott
Teresa Diaz
Bryan Boyer
Emilee Yawn
Jeff Ring (for the original database)
Travis Douglas (for smuggling wayward plants across state borders)
Robin Amer
Jaimes Mayhew
Maura Rockcastle (and her car, R.I.P.)
Javier Arbona
iKatun
Archinect
The Bitter Melon Council
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things 

The Wayward Plant Registry is a public art initiative dedicated to the rehabilitation of unwanted plants. The project functions as a kind of guerilla ‘landscape architecture’, ostensibly plotting lines of  flight amongst humans. The project raises questions about the symbolic role of the ‘natural’ landscape in the city/country divide.

Wayward Plants Registry

KARLA WAY : Entropical Kingdom

Perspex, silver, ruby crystal, cubic zirconia, silk cord

The ruins of an ancient kingdom are pushed and pulled by the elements and time. Humans throughout history have manipulated the earth’s surface and its strata to construct walls, roofs, gates and fences in order to separate civilisation and nature.

Here, plants and crystalline growths have intruded upon a human made form or fortress; they have become inseparable and the landscape reclaims these forms in their altered state.

There is an entropic force at work, a pull towards a chaos that is metamorphic and evolutionary.

The ruin becomes a liminal location, an in-between place, a fringe, where the boundaries between nature and human structures are blurred and the forces of decay and growth are at work.

FIONA HISCOCK : Merrijig Rosehip Cake Stand with Bush Cockroach


Photography: Terence Bogue

Ceramic

I view the traditions of utilitarian ceramic vessels within a broader concept of functionalism, relating the form to pieces that were used in daily domestic rituals of the past. An increased scale gives the object a prominence and position not always found in our everyday lives.

The forms are painted with slip, ceramic oxides and stains, applied in layers of wash. Decoration of the works is inspired by plants found in remnant colonial gardens, and more recently, the weeds that accompanied the plants. The decoration tries to be faithful to the plant, giving as much botanical detail as possible.

I make watercolour studies of each plant prior to painting on the ceramic object, and was intrigued to note the presence of a bush cockroach while collecting a rose hip specimen in rural Victoria. I included this in place of a pollinating insect. By depicting the life cycle of the plant, I hope to refer to the seasons of life to which these everyday objects bear witness.

Fiona Hiscock is represented by Beaver Galleries and Mossgreen Gallery.

TIM GRESHAM : Maquette IX

Wool, cotton; woven tapestry

Weaving a tapestry is marking time. My work is about time and rhythm; the designs are inspired by rhythms in architecture, nature, music and sound, and the routine and rhythm of daily life. These rhythms are expressed through the passage of time, which is marked in the progress of the tapestry from the bottom to the top. This is the essence of why I make tapestries - it takes time.

While my designs are largely influenced by architectural patterns and urban living, the subtle use of colour is drawn from natural hues such as those of grasses, lichen and eucalyptus trunks. Although precisely woven, the designs are loosely drawn and along with the natural colour, soften the visual harshness of the city.

Tim Gresham is represented by Gallery 101.

WENDY GOLDEN : Grass Sneaker

Mixed grasses and linen thread; stitched

Demographic change is sneaking across the Victorian landscape. The rural town of my childhood is becoming a dormitory suburb, now only an hour by train or freeway to the centre of Melbourne. Urban style development of land into housing estates rather than single block development exacerbates the destruction of rural landscape. Social change occurs as new residents demand services and standards readily available in areas with a higher population density.

Working predominately in natural fibres, my sneaker is crafted from the most common of materials – grass. The ‘logo’ or flash on the side of the sneaker of an arrow travelling backwards utilises an endemic fern. The increasing loss of such small plants in large housing developments is indicative of a backwards step. As sneakers replace Blundstones on the pavements, I ponder the increasing impacts of footprints on our fragile environment.

VICKI MASON : Xanthorrhoea

Sterling silver, hand-dyed PVC; hand fabricated

The motif of the Australian native grass-tree was used by many Australian immigrant goldsmiths and jewellers within works produced in the high-colonial period (approx. 1850 - 1870s). It expressed for them a new found pride in their recently acquired identity, as well as colonising ideas of the ‘other’ and of the bush. With its strong vertical focus it perhaps also manifested ideas of the new land watching over and guarding its secrets from those who sought to possess them and the land.

Today within gardening and landscape design in the city, the use of the Australian native grass-tree signifies a native quality or tone. As Nalda Searles points out, it’s a good publiciser for this quality in urban land sales promotions. This ring is loaded with these notions amongst many others, but the grass tree is used here to bring attention to its importance from an environmental standpoint within contemporary society. A unique, iconic and beautiful architectural plant, it may come to the city but its future lies in it being preserved by landowners and reserve/park managers taking care of it in the wild. Although only one of the species within the genus is endangered, it’s a slippery slope.

SATELLITE EXHIBITIONS: Melbourne


Anita Cummins’ Pompoms


Bio-accessory by Brittany Veitch and Ben Landau

PANTONE POMPOM
by Anita Cummins
Dates: Tuesday 30 June – Saturday 22 August
Venue: Mailbox 141, Entrance 141-143 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Explores the relationship between colour, landscape and urban topography.

Anita Cummins is a Melbourne based textile artist. She graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts and a Diploma of Creative Arts. Having exhibited in a number of group shows, Anita is making her debut as an independent artist with her installation Pantone PomPom. Anita is an obsessive knitter and maker of pom-poms and has recently launched a commercial range of handmade scarves under her own name.

 

BIO-ACCESSORIES
by Brittany Veitch and Ben Landau
Dates: Sunday 2 – Sunday 30 August
Artist talk: Saturday 8 August, 2pm @ City Library Seminar Room
Venue: City Library Niches, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Living in the city isolates us from the natural world. Built environments are barriers to greenery, fresh air, sea breezes and sunlight. Skyscrapers soar above us instead of trees, while laneway stench emanates from the city grid. Bio-accessories is a series of wearable couture pieces which mask the unpleasant sights, sounds and scents of the city in an attempt to bring some of the natural world back into civil living.

Each work in Bio-accessories incorporates a living organism to accompany the wearer throughout their day, creating a symbiotic relationship. The human tends to the animal or plant, which reciprocates by bringing fresh air, light, greenery, privacy or birdsong to the wearer. The pieces are representative of mobile natural environments, framed within a fashionable alternative the couture accessory. With a trend towards boutique individuality, Bio-accessories provide an unusual take on the wearable garment.

Bio-accessories is an experimental speculation of responsive, functional, fashionable and emotional craft within a city living context.

Ben Landau recently graduated from Industrial Design at RMIT, where his focus was on interactive, exhibition, experience and theatre design. He is currently a freelance designer, working at Melbourne Museums MV studios and tutoring at RMIT. Bens interests stem from speculative and experimental designs which examine the way people interact with each other and their environment. Ben hopes to travel, learn every day, design valuable experiences for users/audiences and continue to work with creative companies of various disciplines, in Australia and abroad.

Brittany Veitch is a Melbourne based felt and soft sculpture artist. In late 2007, Brittany created The Vibrant City to incubate ideas and give a home to an ever-increasing collection of hand-sewn curios. Brittany makes designer hand-sewn toys and soft sculpture, influenced by macabre and kooky humour using handmade felt and vintage fabrics. A self-taught textile enthusiast, Brittanys interest in working with natural fibres stems from her family’s Alpaca farm. As a trained Industrial Designer (BA Design, Industrial Design, RMIT University, 2007), Brittany is a Toymaker at heart, with a love for all things fabric, the tragically cute and Cribbage.

I’LL SHOW YOU MY CRAFT IF YOU SHOW ME YOURS

dylan_sm_installed
Dylan Martorell and Sunday Morning Designs

dylan_sm_installed
Ellie Mücke and John Hall

Acollaborative series of projects designed to bring together people from different crafts to share processes, materials, and ideas.

Dates: Monday 27 July – Saturday 22 August
Venue: Craft Victoria, enCOUNTER and Gallery 3, 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

A prototype of a multipurpose portable shelter made in response to Melbourne’s housing shortages and skyrocketing rents.

Plans for the shelter include; an exhibition/performance space, a children’s playhouse and a pop-up shop. Artist Dylan Martorell will build a sonic garden inside the shelter consisting of fungi, water plants and field recordings. Sunday Morning Designs have created a multipurpose waterproof textile that will function as a canopy for the structure. The textile, made up of patchworked re-used market bags and tarpaulins, will also be used to create different domestic products inside the space such as lamps and cushions, providing a further sense of comfort and protection from the outside elements.

Dates: Monday 24 August – Saturday 12 September
Venue: Craft Victoria, enCOUNTER and Gallery 3, 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Objects, garments and accessories made exclusively of things gleaned from the kitchen’s mouldy corners and dusty fourth drawer.

Clothing designer Ellie Mücke creates with a focus on more inclusive systems, whose highly considered approach often results in outcomes that stimulate discussion and encourage creative thinking. Metalsmith John Hall’s formal training in jewellery and years working in the manual crafts, whilst maintaining his own creative pursuits, have given him a vast multidisciplinary technical understanding. Together, these two makers with contrasting material knowledge have found common ground in the kitchen, exploring ways to transform the everyday object.