Sectioned off
In my work I have been investigating the recent infrastructures that border various ecosystems local to me, harboring life found nowhere else in the world. Our landscape is getting more difficult to recognise as ‘Aotearoa’. Plants which are introduced creep into the natural ecosystem; human scraps are left lying around. Forest floors are littered with twigs and leaves as leftover remnants of trees and seeds grow, nurturing new life in the soil.
I have been testing out these ideas through painting on materials that we associate with building sites such as off-cut timber. More recently I have been exploring the potential for concrete, and discovering various ways to combine my paintings with this more sculptural material. Works are made with concrete to imply the replacing of ground with this foundational material: native trees are torn down for fencing alongstretches of land residing outside new builds and infrastructure.
In my concrete pieces, I have incorporatedleft over dried paint, fence wire and other building remnants. These are set intothe cement as a record ofhuman leaf litter. I paint over these things in house paint and acrylic, depicting the ever changing and decaying landscape on the out skirts of the forest.
The seeds from the bordering ecosystems that I have been exploring arecaught here in a seed-fall catcher, to be grown and later planted, helping to maintain the regions native biological diversity.
Through understanding the importance of endemic biodiversity wecan help determine future action to combat land-loss and the ever deteriorating natural spaces. My investigation has focused on my local environment, the Waikato, howevernative land loss is not unique to this region or even this country.
Works
Building Blocks
12 panels 450 mm x 270 mm, house paint, acrylic gesso on concrete with mulch, wire fence and dried paint, 2020
Kōwhai & Mānuka
530 mm x 490 mm, acrylic, house paint and concrete on canvas, 2020
Seed-fall catcher
400 x 240 x 240 mm, wood, cloth and wire fence, 2020
Whilst making this canvas painting, I found that it was most successful with the interactions between concrete and paint, the subtilty of the concrete questioned the materiality as it could be seen as just a thicker grey paint. Enjoying this materialistic play between using concrete as both a paint and a canvas shows its versatility of a medium and its obvious possibilities of usages.
The textures found in the concrete blocks opened me up to the ways in which concrete could be molded and manipulated. I was at first worried to use a material which seems to appear as bland, concrete is a material found everywhere in civilization; in buildings, roads, paths and many other day to day use.
Having each panel distanced apart heightened both its individual qualities whilst still allowing a ‘final’ painting reading which I am glad was emphasized and felt successful to me.
The seed-fall catcher could have been developed a bit more, I was planning on adding a looped video to add context to location but this idea made the install feel cluttered and possibly overwhelming to an audience as there would have been far too many elements fighting for attention. I am however glad at the success of the collection of litter and seeds in hopes to plant.
Llenyd Price 