Introduction
Undergrowth: noun, a dense growth of shrubs and other plants, especially under trees in woodland.
During my personal investigation I am going to be looking at plants, and how they can be used to create artistic pieces or used to send a message about nature. To do this I will be looking at Rachel Dien, who uses casting to create plaster or clay casts with plants, I will also be looking at Al Mefer who makes nature look abnormal and extraordinary in his digital photographic series. I will investigate the work of Robert Peek, whose photographs send a message about how beautiful flowers are and how they can be used to show different emotions. Finally, I will look at Jacek Gonsalves who uses cyanotypes in a contemporary way to draw attention to the beauty of the natural world.
I intend to investigate and experiment with the work of all four artists in order to develop my own range of pieces in response to my title ‘Undergrowth’.
Rachel Dien
Rachel Dien is an English artist based in North London, she studied fine art at Middlesex university and then she went on to get an apprenticeship at the English national opera and she has worked as a prop maker in multiple places. She has also had numerous exhibitions in places such as the Cambridge darkroom gallery and the garden suburb gallery.
Her work is clay casts of submerged flowers, beautifully organised in different ways. She uses an array of different flowers and things you can find in nature, such as wildflowers, leaves, wispy poppies and different grasses. Sometimes, in her work, she leaves the colour of the slab white or paints the background, however, sometimes she colours the plants that have been cast. When I am making my pieces, I plan to do something similar to this and experiment with different ways that I could add colour to the pieces that I will make. I feel as though her work fits my project “undergrowth” well as she uses shrubs and plants in her work.
To make her work she uses the casting of flowers using plaster and concrete. When she is doing her work she begins by placing the flowers into clay and pressing them down into the clay to leave an imprint, she then takes the flowers out to leave the shape and form. She then borders the cast-off and pours in plaster/concrete and lets it dry, she then takes the cast off to leave the concrete slab with the imprints of the flowers showing and sticking out to make them half 3D.
Her work is made up of plaster casts of flowers that can sometimes be painted to look more lifelike and colourful. She mostly uses light pastel colours when adding colour to her work. However, in some of her pieces she has used darker colours but on a lighter scale so the colour isn't too overpowering and doesn’t take away from the detail of the shrubs and flowers.
From a combination of technique, colour choices and detail Rachel Dein makes her work seem like the subject matter has been fossilised. They have a similar aesthetic to the prehistoric ammonites and dinosaur teeth found by archaeologists.
Robert Peek
Robert Peek is a Dutch photographer, who sees the beauty in the environment and nature around him. He trained to be an artist at the Royal Academy of Art. A lot of his work is taken while travelling to numerous places across the world where he could collect different flowers native to these countries and uses these in the flower pieces that he makes at home.
I have chosen to focus on his work with flowers and his landscape work on film. His work represents how beautiful nature can be and his work is mostly about showing how pretty and breathtaking nature can be in different ways. I have chosen to focus on his work titled “flowers” and “landscapes” as I think both of these link to my projects quite well. I am going to incorporate his use of film by taking images of plants close up or heavily populated forests with many trees, leaves and wildlife.
To make the flower pieces he uses ink and water. He first freezes the flowers to make sure they don’t move in the water. Then once they are in a position in the tub he uses a syringe of ink and inserts it into the water at a low concentration to make the ink seem like smoke, then he takes his photos. In some, he places the flowers in inky water or milky water. For his work on film, is done on a film camera, he then develops it. Then scans it in to get it online. Then, for some other pieces he does with flowers, he uses something to either mimic a thin section of smoke or he uses incense to incorporate the smoke into his work. He also uses double exposure with flowers in some of his pieces, in which he also makes the flowers look quite glowy and neon, he could use gels to do this.
The medium of the work is photography and film of flowers and other things in nature. In the background, he uses a range of greys, and whites and in some of his photos, he uses black backgrounds to accentuate the look of smoke in some of his pieces.
His pieces have many different feelings to them, as his work on film gives me more of a depressed eerie feel as they look more creepy and emotionless. However, his more bright and vibrant photographs give me more of a positive, cheerful feeling due to the colours of the flowers used, like in one of his pieces where he puts a pink flower in white, inky-looking water. Furthermore, his pieces use ink in water with flowers to make them look like they are being submerged in smoke, look more dramatic and melancholy.
Al Mefer
Al Mefer is a Spanish-based landscape and visual artist-photographer. And I have chosen to focus on his projects called “strange leaves”, “blue mist paprika” and “forest rage”.
The work that I have chosen to focus on is mostly forests, leaves, and other plants. The title of one of his projects that I have chosen to focus on is “strange leaves”. This could imply that the leaves are extraordinary and all the colours of these leaves are quite vibrant or oddly coloured. Thus, this could imply that these leaves have a sense of toxicity to them that makes them biohazardous. His project could also be trying to teach us about the dangers of climate change and global warming and what could possibly happen to places if we do not try to prevent and stop climate change. I also think that the other two projects I’ve chosen to focus on represent this as they too use odd colours and in his “Forest Rage” pieces they look heavily toxic and “Out of this World.”
His work has some elements of realism as the only things he mostly makes look abnormal is the leaves but most trunks of trees, branches and stems of flowers stay the same colour they are maybe just enhanced in colour or made darker. Furthermore, it could be argued that his work shows a strong sense of surrealism, as it looks as though his work is from another planet and it looks as though he’s carefully thought about and chosen his colours to draw attention to the leaves and what he wants us to focus on.
His work is digital photography, to make the work he uses photoshop to edit the colours onto the leaves and make it look “natural” and as if it could be real, even though we know it isn’t. In his photographs in his work “strange leaves”, he has made the main focus of his work the leaves and has done this by the use of light in his images. You can see this in the image with purple leaves, as the main focus is the leaves, and he used dark shadows around the image and in parts with no leaves to accentuate the look and detail of the leaves. However, the shadows also add an element of mystery and depth to the image and make us wonder what is behind the leaves.
His work creates an extraterrestrial space atmosphere as his work is really strange and peculiar. Also, there is potentially a double meaning behind his work and how many inferences can be made from his work, which makes it all the more interesting.
Jacek Gonsalves
Jacek Gonsalves is an artist who was born in Kuwait City but then moved to Perth, Australia. He started off making a career in computer science but found a love for creative jobs, which has led him to design jewellery and even do some woodwork. However, he now focuses on photographic printmaking and is heavily known for his work with cyanotypes, which I have chosen to focus on.
The section of his work I have chosen to focus on is called “cyanotype prints - flora” and in this series of work, he makes cyanotypes using different types of flowers, such as chrysanthemums, sunflowers and roses. He makes his work to send a message about how nature and the beauty of nature are overlooked by many and he hopes to draw attention to the natural world with his work.
To make his work he first coats the cyanotype paper by hand with a chemical solution, then it is left to dry. Once it is dry he goes on to expose the paper with the flower to a custom-built light box. After it has been exposed, the paper needs to be carefully rinsed so it doesn’t rip after it has been rinsed you are left with a cyanotype with a flower on. The traditional technique of creating a cyanotype sees the artist simply place the object on to the prepared paper, but in most of his work Gonsalves uses a more contemporary practice in which he creates negatives of photographs of the flowers he wishes to capture. This technique gives the finished work a more realistic look, more ‘photographic’.
The medium of his work that I have chosen to focus on is cyanotypes as I feel as though they fit my project title “Undergrowth” well as he uses plants in his pieces. His work is mostly blue with the main focus being light blue/white. However, some of his pieces look like reverse cyanotype as the background is white but the main focus on the piece (the flower) is blue and these pieces look so mesmerising, I think his piece with a double hibiscus look eye-catching due to the detail of the cyanotype and how the composition and flower look overall.
His work makes the viewer appreciate the beauty of nature, especially all the beauty in the form of a single flower. Although flowers have long been associated with beauty, I feel as though Gonsalves has done this in a different way, mostly due to his reduced colour palette. People often associate the flower with colour, bright and vibrant, but here the artist has taken this element away, leaving us only with blue and white. The simplifying of the colour allows the audience to see the delicate shapes and layers that build up each individual bloom.
Discussion
I feel as though all the artists that I have researched make unique pieces to their projects that show what I want to show in my investigation. Some of my artists, such as Jacek Gonsalves and Robert Peek use their work to convey a message on the beauty of nature and how it should be appreciated, but Al Mefer makes nature look more unnatural and out of this world, but he could also still be conveying a message on how nature should be protected and warning us on the effects of climate change.
I have chosen two artists, Al Mefer and Robert Peek, who use photography in their work and the projects of theirs I’ve chosen to focus on heavily on leaves and flowers, but some of Robert Peek’s work gives a melancholy feel while Al Mefer’s work gives more of an extraterrestrial, unusual feel. My other two artists use different mediums, as Rachel Dien uses casting to make tiles with plants fossilised into them and Jacek Gonsalves makes cyanotypes using singular flowers, but both use separate flowers that are either store-bought or hand-picked and used as the main subject matter in their work.
In three of my artist’s work the subject matter is heavily focused on flowers, but the way they present them is different. They still all have the main focus of their image focused on flowers and none of the artists mainly show flowers in their natural surroundings, apart from Robert Peek’s work on film, where some of his photos are focused on flowers, but some are landscape photos of forests and leaves. Al Mefer does his work differently, as his subject matter focuses on many different plants and heavily populated forests with lots of wildlife.
Rachel Dien and some pieces of Robert Peek have a brighter and pastel colour scheme, which could also be said for Jacek Gonsalves’ cyanotypes as they do have bright aspects to them. However, Al Mefer’s work has a very colourful colour scheme but some of his pieces have a darker feel to them, similar to some of Robert Peek’s pieces using ink with flowers, his pieces with smoke and flowers, or his work on film.
In both Gonsalves’ and Dien's work we can see the detail and intricate pattern found within a single leaf or flower, we can see the pattern, the shape and the form that a single bloom can hold. This allows the viewer to really look at the subject of the work, allowing them to understand the tiny details in the things we see every day.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I have found that artists use floral imagery to create a variety of developed pieces in a range of different media, in response to the visual stimulus of ‘Undergrowth’.