Nature Strikes Back
The Crowhurst Art Garden
The Crowhurst Art Garden
For the past few years I have been creating a small art garden in the village of Crowhurst, East Sussex. All the work in the garden has either been created by myself or donated by friends. Most of the work is made from found or re-purposed objects, and it all interconnects with nature in some way. The experience of the environment in this garden is as important as the experience of the art. So the garden works with nature in the sense that it ebbs and flows naturally with minimal human intervention.
The garden was started in 2017 with the generous donations of Mantis by Martin Adams and Julie by Esther Neslen. Three cast iron radiators removed from the house during a new boiler installation were then given an entirely new life as Sheepish. In March 2019 we had the addition of Jolyon Dupuy's Duchamp's Step- Ladder. Not only does the wheel spin but it also has its own original music video put together by Jolyon and Peter Schofield. Thanks to Tim Vine for photos of this. In the course of maintenance work in 2019, Mantis underwent a metamorphosis from golden plywood to forest green.
In April 2020, two more pieces were added. Flying Fish and Still Life. In the course of doing the Crowhenge project in the village, I met Ian Gordon and he gave me the piece of wood that became Flying Fish. The shape is exactly how he found it so all I did was sand and oil it and give it some eyes. Still Life consists of an empty picture frame suspended between two trees on thin wire. This gives the illusion that the frame is floating in space.
Latest additions are Witch Stones, a donation from Frances and Steve Royston and Baked Earth, a small tower made from three old terracotta chimney pots. There is also a piece of fun called Framed, made in from an old roof tile, some random junk and an former outdoor toilet window frame. This was in collaboration with David Murphy.
'Baked Earth' is a tower made from old terracotta chimney pots. The title is a direct translation of terracotta but also works very well as a reference to the climate crisis we are in. Topped with a stone-filled clay dish, the tower also collects rain water for insects and birds.
There are motifs throughout the garden of stone, wood and clay, gently interspersed with garbage. Hubcaps, plastic bottles and other objects either found at the side of the road or actually thrown into the garden, have been arranged as if they are a natural part of it. Their inappropriate presence is a blunt statement of environmental reality in an otherwise peaceful and pristine environment. However, it is fascinating to watch as nature, left to its own devices, begins to obscure these alien objects.
Esther Neslen's beautiful sculpture 'Julie' embodies the meditative calm and mental stillness that being fully immersed within a natural environment can bring. She is a quietly reverent presence in the garden and this very much encourages visitors to approach it in the same way. Installing 'Still Life' in front of her has only increased this atmosphere of contemplation.
The empty frame seems to float among the trees. What you see through the frame changes as you walk around the garden and will also change depending on the time of day and the season. Framing nature in this way allows 'Still Life' to be quite open to thought and interpretation but it primarily communicates a very simple and universal message that everybody, regardless of their relationship to ‘art’, can understand. It focuses attention on just how much we take the natural world around us for granted. There are interesting objects to look at in the garden but nothing can exist without what you see through the frame. It presents an opportunity for people to just stop and look at the framed trees and to see all their different shades, shapes and textures and how they constantly respond to filtered light and the movement of air.
Mantis, is a giant, interlocking plywood model of a praying mantis by Martin Adams. It is a very striking piece of work that has since become quite a landmark locally. It is fun but makes a serious point. The crucial contribution of invertebrates to a thriving and sustainable ecology is often overlooked and this is acknowledged in the dramatic upscaling of this iconic insect.
In the process of installing a new boiler in our house we removed three original, cast iron radiators. These were then renovated and reassembled as Sheepish. They very much reflect the local area and do exude something of the atmosphere that is present in a field of gently grazing sheep. The transformation of an extracted, industrialised material into a representation of a soft, living thing has a surreal poetry of its own. They were recently renovated again and given removable coats so they are now fully machine washable!
A (very!) temporary installation - October 2020
Crowhenge is a public artwork celebrating the character and community of the village of Crowhurst in East Sussex. It was commissioned in March 2019 and installed in Crowhurst Recreation ground in August 2019. It used common types of local wood to create a 7-piece structure representing 7 areas of Crowhurst life: Community, Environment, Heritage, Youth, Business, Farming and Sanctuary. A full account of the project from inception to completion can be seen be clicking the image below.