2014
exfoliated concrete panels
1070 X 6180 cm
Hoop Pine Suite
Patterns in nature
How plants develop their individual characteristics, forms, colours, textures, etc is a subject that has been investigated, debated, refuted and revised for aeons. Magic, God, chemistry and biology have all had their part to play in humans understanding and theorising on the nature of nature. Even in our current age of 'thinking we know everything that is to be known' there are still great gaps in our theories and mysteries that continue to elude and baffle us. We now understand much of how certain chemicals produce certain phenomenon, hereditary resemblance, and selective breeding, of how gravity, radiation, environmental stress and species interaction effect the behaviour and development of plants and animals. We have many answers to the question of how things happen, when things happen and what things are - but almost no understanding of why things are.
Mechanists and Materialists raise their glasses to tiny strands of DNA or Deoxyribonucleic acid with the faith that these protein switches (acting like a computer program) control the destiny of all living things. Vitalists, Dualists and proponents of Emergent Properties and Emergent Systems accept the role of DNA in mutation, variation and evolution but suggest other environmental forces are at play in the realisation of actual form. Creationists and believers in numerous religious faiths see the form and nature of all things as being the results of intervention of a pre-existent being.
The list of variations, combinations and degrees of adherence to any one of these and many other philosophies engaged in this debate is endless but one thing almost all of these theories have in common is a belief that the development of living things in not a random process but a relatively predictable process with a foundation that can be described using mathematics.
Informed by research and my personal experience of the world I have my own evolving theories on the nature of nature and how things are, where they are going, and why they are. These opinions and speculations are the source and inspiration for what I create, they colour my world and provide me with a foundation from which I might formulate more ideas and theories. I use mathematics, patterns and structures as a starting point for much of my work as I believe it is an essential ingredient in all things (or at least all physical things).
Most often the patterns I make are not derived from any conscious mimicking of the appearance of a pre-existing thing. They are more akin to an amalgam of all my experiences and observations; a distillation of a life time’s interaction with the world realised into a particular moment in time.
For the purposes of this commission I was asked to consider and relate the work to the native flora of Queensland or Australia. This posed an interesting challenge which drew me in a number of directions some fruitful others frustrating. In addition to this there was the added challenge of producing concepts for three works of a very different nature; a surface treatment, a planar/surface work and a work in 3 dimensions.
I am less interested in reproducing the appearance of nature than trying to distil the essence of something and present it in a more universal way. As a starting point I chose to research species that are (or were once) endemic not only to Queensland but to the dry Eucalyptus forest region around Mt Gravatt. From here the objective was to devise a pattern or motif that represented aspects of the chosen species.
Commissioner - Westfield
Curation - Urban Art Projects
