Wild Garden 2020
The wild is the garden. This drawing directs the viewer towards the devastating human impact on nature and failure to comprehend the importance of all life to the continuation of our own. The intention is to engage the viewer, through scale and proximity, with ecocide and biodiversity loss.
Wild Garden 2020, Mahoe charcoal, Japanese walnut ink on watercolour paper, 300gsm, 1200x10000mm
Using the technique of 'subtractive charcoal drawing', plant forms are drawn with an eraser into a soft charcoal ground. This work, executed entirely out-of-doors during the wet NZ winter, bears details of climatic and biological action. The drawn marks indicate the ghost forms of plants, subliminally referencing the decline of rambunctious nature.
Shown as part of Whenua Ūkaipō Connectedness, in celebration of UN 75, this work characterises UN Sustainable Development Goal 15: Life on the Land, setting out how human prosperity must go hand-in-hand with protecting the planet. In choosing to engage with the physical and visual messages of this drawing, the viewer is confronted with the subject matter in an experience that calls us to reverse the damage we have done and rise to the challenge of becoming planetary stewards instead.
