QUESTION/KEY IDEAS/THEMES:
With analysis/ reference to environmental artists, consider the relationship between feminism, specifically ecofeminism, the Anthropocene and representations of flora/organic forms in art;
-formalisation of flora
- eccentric abstraction
- Greenhouse Effect.
Flora and Femininity: Ecofeminism
Anna Halm Schudel
Flowers being a popular motif in art throughout history, Swiss photographer Anna Halm Schudel comments on their symbolic potency and prevalent connection with the female in her illustrated photobook ‘Blossom’. Blossoming bouquets have brought much metaphorical meaning, as demonstrated through the mastery brushstrokes of Van Gogh and O’Keeffe and in the skilled hands of the contemporary; such as Ikebana artist Akaya Fujii. Schudel’s contemporary photographic perspective of ‘zooming into leafy veins to create an exuberant feast of colours’(Schudel,2019,p22) glorifies mother nature; celebrating its supreme and intricate designs existing above human intellect.
Anna Halm Schudel: Photographing a Floral Symphony, ‘Anna’s Blumen’ (2009)
This element of the mystical and transcendent runs parallel to ecofeminist Plumwoods writings on the materialistic spirituality of space, as well as mirroring notions of ‘nature as divine’ as discussed in Carsons Publication ‘Silent Spring’ (1962). No less fascinated by decay, Schudel has also produced a series of photographs reflecting ecofeminist theory by visually transforming botany underwater to produce mystical, compelling images combining flora’s delicate beauty with a ‘stirring memento mori’(Schudel,2019,p21). This reminder of the inevitability of death is synonymous with ecofeminist concepts and concerns. By emphasising nature as delicate and transient, Schudel projects feminism in conjunction with environmentalism, the exuberant and fleeting life of nature being something we should cherish and protect.
Anna Halm Schudel, 'Sea of Flowers', (2015)
Schudel translates the ‘vibrant glow’ and energised nature of botany before it wilts and fades. Through employing vivid, luminous hues, her floral photographs express the continually changing expression and tension of cut flowers as they slowly die. I intend to capture this ‘floral blaze’ within my paintings. Combining vibrancy with softer oil colours, such as viridian greens, ochres and umbers, I convey the early, gentle tiredness, discolouration and fleeting life of ageing flora through paint. Projecting this 'feast of vibrant colour' highlights temporality; flora's impermanence and vitality. It also romanticises botany as divine and alluring in design and aesthetic. After all, the beauty and complex shapes of botany, such as buttercups and artichokes, ‘have an ambiguous sensuality when studied up-close’(Schudel,2019,p23).
Manipulation of Scale: Sensuality and Ambiguity
Zooming into the calyx with a camera lens, Schudel captures how a peony lasciviously stretches out its petals, its crowns exposing stamen. This intimate, large scale perspective is not dissimilar to predecessor O’Keeffe’s sensual floral paintings. Although perhaps unintentional by O'Keeffe, both female artists undeniably sexualise and personify the flower as it exists harmoniously within its surrounding environment. Focusing on micrographic botanical material on a large scale, and flora from an immersive perspective in my own practice, I too attempt to translate natures sensuality; the intense, vital force found in the depths of a flower’s receptacles, the artful sophistication of seduction.
Anna Halm Schudel, 'Portraits of Flowers', (2004)
This understanding of the intricacy and potency of botanical matter, as it exists in the face of mankind, reflects ecofeminist concepts. By capturing the delicate and vulnerable, yet energised and vibrant life of seedlings and sprouts, shoots and saplings, Schudel exposes her audience to the subtle yet unyielding strength of the flower. This empowers the female and her connection to the natural and organic. Parallel with botanical blossoming, comes a devotion and desire to impart, despite world pollutants/nature’s harsh conditions. Such environmental art portrays this ‘battle for existence, fought out with aesthetic virtuosity’. (Schudel, 2019,p23). This ecological fight for coexistence coincides with women’s desire to be freed from the constrains of a historically male dominated, domesticated environment; characteristic of ‘Eurocentric capitalist patriarchal culture’. Utilising a variety of mediums, such as paint, print and textile sculpture, I consider and reflect on the drama, sexuality, potency and delicacy of botanical matter in my work.
Emily Wenman 'Floral Blaze', oil on canvas, 90x60cm, (2020)
Emily Wenman, 'Botanical Study- Red Algae', viridian green, ochres and magenta: depicting, aquatic, fleeting, vibrant, divine, sensual life of flora 110cmx70cm, oil on canvas (2020)
Employing limited tones of crimson and magenta to depict an unanimous, immersive linear composition, the above study 'Floral Blaze' depicts flora as it blazes in full bloom. The energy and vitality expressed through painterly impressions is translated from an unusually up close perspective. Painting the natural and organic from a consuming, immersive scale is a recurring theme in my work. Not only does this express sensuality, but it also evokes an ambiguous, abstract quality, creating a mystique to the subject. Such shapes colours and textures not only remind us of flora, but also luscious fabric folds or perhaps bodily fluids.
Environmentalism
Anna Halm Schudel 'Trash Flowers', (2014)
Through her vibrantly captivating yet subtly disconcerting imagery, Schudel acknowledges inhumane environmental concerns surrounding flower breeding methods. Many cultivators forcibly introduce variants of blossoming flowers whereby natural reproduction through the blossom is disturbed or even destroyed. Most of our bouquets are comprised of such highly cultured flowers which ‘could never blossom organically’ (Schudel,2019,p23). Symbolically, this materialistic and commercialised presentation of ‘floral beauty’ emulates the patriarchal and misogynistic outlook which consumes our current and ongoing commercial and material world; whilst also addressing environmental ethics in relation to femininity. This environmental concern considered by Schudel reflects similar concepts and concerns discussed in ecofeminist Rachel Carson’s 1962 publication ‘Silent Spring’, which addresses the destruction of the delicate balance of nature by the wholesale use of insecticides (Atwood,2012,p1).
Botanical Photograms
Anna Atkins ‘Cystoseira Fzurosa: Cyanotype Photogram’ (1843)
Influenced by Schudel’s photographic series titled ‘Sea of Flowers 2015’, I translate the aquatic, free-flowing formality of botany and the, often amorphous structure of organic material. This lucid, loose painterly understanding of algae and natural forms developed from analysing photograms of botanical specimens. As demonstrated by botanist Ana Atkins, the fabric-like quality to leaves, botany and flora lends itself particularly well to atmospherics considered through photograms/ Atkin’s botanical cytotypes. This method used to record shell drawings, seaweeds and ferns emphasises the lucid and transparent nature of ‘Ocean Flowers’. I therefore utilise photograms of botany in my work to convey this symbiotic visual relationship between the liquidity of paint and botany’s translucent, fluid qualities.
Emily Wenman 'Porphyra Umbilicalis (Red Algae)', Oil on canvas 100cm x 80cm, (2020)
Emily Wenman 'Ocean Flowers in Magenta, Nature's Teachings', magenta ink on newsprint series, A4x8, (2020)
Pictorial Construction: Positive and Negative Space
The above works 'Porphyra Umbilicalis (Red Algae)' and 'Magenta Ocean Flower Monoprint Series' both consider the visual effects of the photogram/cyanotype as a recording process. I have deliberately painted an inverted composition of red algae, whilst presenting monoprints alternating positive with negative. This emphasises negative and positive space and the 'stencil, silhouette-like' pictorial construction evident in cyanotypes/photograms.
I too acknowledge environmental concerns within my practice. Developing on from my burnt umber monoprint series (reflecting the ordered and meticulous structure of the herbariums dried plant storage method through a carefully constructed presentation of repeated prints) I introduce magenta into the series. Unlike burnt umber, which reflects the ageing process of pressed plants, depicting printed botanical impressions in magenta ink gives a sense of artificial permanence to the vitality and vibrant energy associated with blooming flora. This commercialised, urbanised, artificial-like magenta pigment is a colour associated with the unnatural; highlighting toxicity of pollutants and industrialisation on nature. I intend to employ this toxic use of colour to emphasise the anthropogenic impact humans have on botany and the environment.
Emily Wenman Section from 'Porphyra Umbilicalis, oil on canvas, Red Algae, 100cmx80cm, (2020)
‘Porphyra Umbilicalis’, conveying inverted red algae through oils, also expresses ecological concerns as it is reminiscent of an abstracted arial landscape of oil spillages and industrial emissions. Practicing with thinning down oils and layering deep hues, creates an aquatic quality previously discussed which, in turn describes underwater algae. I utilise similar artificial, urbanised colours such as charcoal grey/black and garnet/blood red to represent contamination ‘spilling’ onto the natural undulating landscape. Intertwining the unnatural and urbanised with the raw, unspoilt and organic sheds light on our current climate crisis and its toxic effects on botanical impressions shapes and imagery. Presenting print alongside painting defines a relationship between lucid and visceral aesthetics, with more definitive and linear visual components.
Marc Quinn
Quinn also discusses the Anthropogenic impact of humans on nature through his momentous 2000 installation ‘Garden’ as well as his ensuing Eternal Spring Sculptures and flower paintings. ‘Garden’ features cryogenically frozen plants captured at the peak of their beauty and suspended in their lifecycle. Inspired by flower markets, where all different species can be purchased in a single place, Quinn’s work embodies desire; a perfect yet artificial botanical, tropical paradise. Seemingly bursting with life, these flowers, preserved in a silicone tank, are ironically dead. I utilise a manipulated palette of toxic, vibrant hues, and a pictorial construction mimicking this ‘formalization of flora’; comprised of motifs and silhouettes amongst more expansive washes of paint. Similar to Quinn and Schudel, this visual delivery reflects the manipulation of nature, botany adopting a synthetic, artificial and urbanised appearance.
Marc Quinn. 'Garden', cold room, stainless steel, heated glass, refrigeration equipment, mirrors, acrylic tank, low viscosity silicon oil held at -20°C turf, plants, flowers,320h x 1270w x 543d cm, (2000)
Arguably, there is ‘no such thing as nature anymore’ (Quinn, 2006, p.1), there is only culture. As with landscape designer Piet Oudolf’s wild perennial gardens, all landscapes are manipulated. With every flower being genetically modified through breeding to achieve its appearance, gardens are being ‘constructed’ not grown. I would like to emphasise this artificial modification further, by using synthetic material itself to portray botanical tissue and floral forms. Like Quinn’s installation work, I aim to produce a sculptural painting, an expansion of painting whereby such botanical impressions/mark-making takes on three-dimensional space. This would not only emphasize the physicality of flora, but also the severity and monopolising anthropogenic impact humankind has on nature.
Piet Oudolf's manipulated landscape, 'Maximilian Park' (2011)
Emily Wenman 'Wild Perennials, watercolour and oil pastel on paper, A4, (2020)
Both Quinn and Schudel remark on the transience of life through their attempt to capture nature and halt time. Rich and erotic in depiction, both artists emulate a ‘lusty garden of paradise’ whereby the flower is immortalized at the moment of full bloom and sensuality.
Contemporary cultures obsession with preserving youth and beauty, often through unnatural means, contains a certain allure and perverseness I wish to explore. Rather than depicting botany out in its natural environment, Schudel photographs her subject matter within the photo studio. This choice of documentation acknowledges how, when cut from the ground, flowers are no longer immersed in the untouched, unaltered wilderness, but succumb to human manipulation; they are domesticated, commercialized and materialised. By experimenting with stark torchlight in my own practice, (capturing botanical material under condensed, artificial lighting), I manipulate nature, 'reshaping its limitations'.(Quinn, 2006, p.1). Such artificial light picks up a leafs crisp folds, making it appear fabric-like. It takes on a synthetic, commercialised, ominous persona. Reminiscent of crepe paper or luxurious silks, botany now resembles a fabric synonymous with stereotypically feminine beauty ideals.
Marc Quinn, 'Portraits of Landscapes', print on paper, (2008)
Emily Wenman 'Night Garden', watercolour, pencil fineliner pen on paper, 30cmx25cm, (2021)
- flora under torchlight, urbanised, synthetic perspective
-reflects Anthropogenic effects of humans on nature
-genetic modification through breeding
Blaschka Glass Flower Collection, 1886
Leopold Blaschka, 'Restored Marine Invertebrate: Mollusks' Harvard Museum, Glass models, (1886)
Leopold Blaschka, 'Tubularia indivisa/ Oaten Pipes Hydroid' Harvard Museum, Glass models, (1886)
Lisa Corrin comments on the effects of human manipulation over nature within her article ‘The Greenhouse Effect’. When discussing Harvard University’s Blaschka Glass Flower Collection located in its Museum of Natural History, Corrin notes of their impact simply due to their disconcerting and confusing exhibited placement. One would assume that these ornate, meticulously rendered glass ‘specimens’, protected in their vitrines, would be displayed as sculptural works within a white cube gallery space. However, displaying them so naturally, in amongst real specimens of rocks fossils, dead birds, fish and mammals allows for the power of the unexpected, adding to their sense of awe, mystique and foreign understanding. This is a form of ‘manipulated landscape’ as Blaschka places the artificial in an unexpected location; in amongst natural archives neatly arranged by taxonomy. Interestingly, Corrin remarks on being more captivated by the artificial nature, describing the Blaschka Flowers as more ‘real’ than the real specimens themselves (Corrin,1961,p.41). Ironically, they’re timeless yet they depict something so temporary.
The Ware Collection: Blaschka Glass Flower Models, Harvard Museum of Natural History, Boston, U.S.
Foreign Placement: Wonder
Above all else however, their wonder is not in their technical skill, nor in being a by-product of nature at all, but rather of the museum and its accoutrements. By housing and juxtaposing 'the real and the artful' (Corrin,1961,p.42), the viewer becomes fascinated by this foreign placement and blurring of boundaries. This use of placing objects in a foreign environment is emulated in my practice. I attempt to translate flora out of its natural environment, combining the natural and artificial. By manipulating scale, cellular forms are placed out of proportion and ‘blown up’ to appear bizarre and otherworldly in comparison to their life-sized, normally proportioned surrounds.
Micographic Imagery: Leaf Epidermis
This ‘taxonomy’ evident in the meticulous ordering and organisation of our Herbarium’s botanical archives is also evident in micrographic imagery of organic material. Micrographs of leaf surfaces and epidermal cells employ a visual language of order, categorisation and repetition of cyclical shapes and cellular forms (i.e. trichomes). The methodical arrangement of my monoprint series echoes the scientific language of taxonomy; systematic botanical cataloguing and archiving of specimens. Utilising this repeated trichome shape mirrors this orderly ‘taxonomy’ as I attempt to methodically slot and construct soft shapes to create a ‘sculptural epidermis’.
Micographic imagery of leaf pit and epidermal cells: thinner cellular wall where fluid is exchanged
Manipulation of Scale: Ambiguity
Additionally, as with my earlier immersive paintings of flora, I manipulate and play with scale through my use of micrographic imagery as source material. Micrography focuses on the organic from an up close, zoomed in perspective; adding to the fantastical, bizarre and foreign quality I wish to emulate. The often fluorescent, vivid and energised colour evident in micographic imagery is similar to the tones I often employ in my pantings; to translate this otherworldly toxicity of colour.
Micographic imagery of leaf pit and epidermal cells: the thinner cellular wall where fluid is exchanged within the plant
Lucy Lippard: 'Eccentric Abstraction'
As discussed in Lucy Lippard’s article ‘Eccentric Abstraction’, it can be argued that feminist artists tend to relate organic, rounded, bulbous shapes with the depiction of feminine, bodily forms. Like Surrealist Art, which adopts distorted figures and biomorphic shapes, the term coined by Lippard as ‘Eccentric Abstraction’ explores similar phycological themes. However, instead of the accumulation of recognisable objects, ‘Eccentric Abstraction’ explores the formal and 'material properties of non-objective art to achieve sensuous experience' (Lippard, 1971, p.99). A 'non-sculptural' style adopted by sculptors, Eccentric Abstraction better identifies with abstract painting over sculpture/formalist painting. Where formalist painting focuses on formal problems, Eccentric Abstraction identifies by the senses-visual, tactile and visceral (Lippard,1971,p.111), rejecting literary pictorial associations. My practice adopts a similar visceral painting style, whereby I intuitively focus on the continuously harmonious, soft, cyclical qualities associates with the feminine and organic.
Emily Wenman, 'Leaf Pit', oil on canvas,120cmx160cm, (2020)
-Repeated, rounded, soft, cyclical, amorphous shapes reminiscent of the feminine, sensual and organic
-Mirroring the Eccentric Idiom
Emily Wenman 'Leaf Epidermis Diptych', oil on canvas,
100x100cm and 120x160cm, (2020)
Louise Bourgeoise
As with feminist Bourgeoise’s works, far out of sculptural mainstreams, her 1964 exhibition at Stable Gallery included several small, flesh coloured latex moulds; their single, smooth, flexible forms indirectly erotic. Such mounds, eruptions and concave-convex reliefs implied a suggestion of voyeurism; knot-like and decidedly unprepossessing in appearance. Bourgeoise, through her near-visceral identification and relationship with form, provokes that part of the brain which, when activated by the eye, 'experiences the strongest physical sensations' (Lippard, 1971, p.102).
Louise Bourgeois, Exhibition: The Stable Gallery, New York (1964)
Louise Bourgeois, 'Clutching', Plaster,(1962), Part of plaster and latex sculpture series at The Stable Gallery, New York (1964)
This, in part, relates to my practice, whereby the visually bulbous, lucid forms and washes of paint, evoke cellular tissue and sensuous, feminine bodily references. As with ‘Eccentric Abstraction’, I employ this characteristically feminine, ‘long, slow, voluptuous, but also mechanical curve’ in my oil paintings; organic and amorphous in composition. Such a cyclical gesture, perfected, completed and continuous, stimulates a rhythm associated with female gender, sensuality and eroticism. By incorporating texture paste into my paintings, I allow for organic forms to take on a sculptural role, protruding from the canvas as a form of relief panting.
Texture Paste used to depict Trichome Leaf Cells: protruding bulbous bodily forms- Section from 'Leaf Epidermis Diptych', Emily Wenman, (2020)
Emily Wenman, 'Leaf Pit', oil on canvas,120cmx160cm, (2020)
Many artists associated with ‘Eccentric Abstraction’ started as painters before moving into three-dimensions. This idea of the 'sculptural painting' emphasises tactility. It allows the work to interact with its physical surroundings, in turn heightening feelings of sensuality. I intend to elevate my botanical works beyond two-dimensionality without disregarding paint pigment and the gestural role of painterly processes; as a form of expanded painting.
Expanded Painting: Bodily Forms
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse,`The Ingeminate' surgical hose, papier-mâché, cord, sprayed enamel over balloons (1965)
Eva Hesse, 'Several', papier-mâché, paint, cord, (1965)
The corporeal (bodily/fleshy) connotations of the formal and material aspects of Hesse’s work have been crucial to their suggestive, sensuous understanding. The hanging, flopping, bulbous forms of her sculptural works ‘Ingeminate (1965) and ‘Several’ (1965), both included in Lippard’s 1966 ‘Eccentric Abstraction’exhibition, evoke the body in its absurd and sexual moments. Here, Hesse layers papier-mâché and winding cord over balloons and other hollow objects, 'covering their surface with black and grey-scale enamel/acrylic paint' (Krčma, 2017, p.380). The discomforting absence of satisfactions of colour and their unyielding state brought about by the sheen of enamel, gives these works qualities of detachment and obscurity. Such refusal of bodily empathies and comfort evokes a witty pessimism and sexual frankness.
Hesse’s use of materiality to evoke meaning is crucial to her work. She used an ‘odd consistency of latex to introduce an excessive materiality to her sculpture’(Krčma, 2017, p.380). The sheen of freshly applied latex conjures a wetness that has a very visceral quality. Both dry or white signalling wetness; latex is malleable and can be subtly and precisely controlled in its layered application, yet it also bears an unruliness; it can be made beautiful or repulsive; and it evokes the organic and fleshy, while maintaining contact with industrial materials.
Emily Wenman, Expanded Painting, 'Vessels: Bodily and Botanical',
acrylic, canvas, plastic, silk, cotton, feathers, thread, (2021)
Like Hesse, I utilise the tactility, softness and translucence of fabrics to convey meaning within my practice. The translucent, fluid quality of organza and silks for example, connotes bodily concepts, skin tissue, cellular matter, or this idea of ‘the vessel’. Expanded painting has helped me explore materiality and structure to depict this ‘breathable surface’ of a leaf pit and its assimilation to bodily forms. Each bulbous form reflects both bodily concepts as well as the rounded, soft visual description of trichomes; epidermal cells which support the absorption of water, minerals and control temperature regulation in the plant.
Expanded Painting: Bodily and Botanical
Eccentric abstraction emphasises on the matter itself, materials, process of making, associations of organic qualities, colour, shape and sensuous experiences.
Emily Wenman, Expanded Painting, 'Vessels: Bodily and Botanical',
acrylic, canvas, plastic, silk, cotton, feathers, thread, (2021)
Exploring and Documenting Processes as Research: Making and Materiality
Emily Wenman, Process of Expanded Painting, Vessels: Bodily and Botanical, acrylic, canvas, plastic, silk, cotton, feathers, thread, (2021)
Sculptural Forms: Materiality and Meaning
Auricularia Auricula-Judae
Auricularia Auricula-Judae, Wood Ear Fungus
Considering this idea of expanded painting and the sculptural realm of ‘Eccentric Abstraction’, I have produced a cluster of bulbous sculptural forms of bodily and botanical connotations using tights, foam and string. Unlike my previous sculptural painting which incorporated painterly materials such as canvas and paint, this sculptural form exhibits less vivid, more earthly colours. The cluster of soft, cyclical forms of foam appear to repeat and multiply; emulating the organic growth of fungi, specifically Wood Ear, or ‘Auricularia-Judae’. This species of fungus is both fabric-like and flesh-like, reminiscent of bodily concepts and forms.
Emily Wenman, 'Sculptural/Organic Forms: Bodily and Botanical, Auricularia Auricula-Judae', tights, foam, thread, (2021)
Dissimilar to the pastel, more welcoming, aesthetically inviting colours used in the previous sculpture of trichomes, ‘Auricularia-Judae’ employs heavier/opaque more obtrusive and obstructive tones. Influenced by Eva Hesse’s use of latex to convey sexual frankness and a witty pessimism, I too use materials and opaque colour that appears somewhat foreign and detached from translucent bodily empathies/comfort. This sense of the foreign combined with a bodily understanding of skin-like, bulbous forms is subtly disconcerting as I attempt to combine the intimate body with the obscure and otherworldly.
Emily Wenman, 'Sculptural/Organic Forms: Bodily and Botanical, Auricularia Auricula-Judae', tights, foam, thread, (2021)