Gallery - Heartwood, Circular, and Related Works

Beauty Spots #1

Beauty Spots #1

2017

12x24"

SOLD

What do we think is beautiful in nature? Is it the perfect leaf, the flawless surface, untouched by the seasons' passage? Or can we appreciate the way plants are integrally linked with many other creatures like insects and fungi to help form the cycle of life?

This piece is part of a series that honours all the little creatures who nourish themselves on our garden plants, and thus become food for birds and larger animals in nature's food chain. With this series I hope to show that we should really fall in love with our holes, dots and spots in the garden.

The yellow waving bits at the bottom are microscopic fungal strands, and the bubbly circles are cross sections of their spores, released. The leaves in the higher row show evidence of fungal action. In a well established natural environment, disease and insects are kept in check by their interactions with other beings. Real damage only occurs when new foreign organisms are introduced. By using native plants in our landscape, we help conserve the local balance, and by extension, the balance of the environment in which we evolved ourselves.