On the 9 – 10th July Lieneke and Victor will be opening their garden Cae Rhydau, Caernafon via National Garden Open Scheme for the first time. Lieneke a Dutch RHS Gold Medallist florist has very kindly invited me to exhibit a floral artwork in her garden alongside her own work.
This Summer inspired by bright light, long views, wind beaten trees surrounding my new temporary home in Anglesey, I have been thinking of the Australian landscape and my early childhood in Melbourne.
Thanks to brilliant Amy McDonnell and Zero Hour campaign co-ordinator and Permaculture Book Group collaborator for her willingness to work in wind and rain.
Thanks to Lieneke, who kindly suggested the collaboration, on the right and her dog Fleur (the larger of two) and Rod on the left, who I met on the Pilgrimage for Nature last year.
Using cut willow which was drying on site we built a visor shaped install as a nod to Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series. In these famous Australian paintings the outlaw, murderer, bushranger Ned Kelly merges with landscape. The violence encompassed by his actions is depicted in a naieve bright style by the painter who inhabits this outsider. In this series Nolan reflects on European ties, both via his personal experience and of Australia’s involvement in the Second World War and Western painting tradition and there is a sense of both belonging and staunch independence cultivated at the same time.
I like the visor shape as a starting point for reflecting on how we have a blinkered view of the landscape according to what we know of it, whilst simultaneously providing a viewpoint to look at the landscape from and opportunity to look at the tool of our own blinkeredness, which hopefully expands the vision.
I see this work very much as a prototype; the design changed rapidly given materials and stability in the wind, and I think that the coverage of mesh could be further developed to reflect different sites. The visor panels also act as a temporary divider and having worked on it flat we created a trampled stage area within it and series of pathways up through the grass to the artwork. Perhaps this space could also be used for further reflection on the landscape as well as the armour we build around ourselves and how our views are informed by both indiviudal and collective vision.
