Photosynthesis - biotic imprinting on the leaves of Bromeliad plants - © Lloyd Godman
| Light for Aristotle was " the actualization of the potentially transparent". |
| Now - light where it exists - can exert an action, and in certain circumstances does exert one sufficient to cause changes in material bodies. Fox Talbot 1834 |
| The Photo-syn-thesis project involved masking off areas of Bromeliad plants and exposing them for months to sunlight which created bionically imprinted symbols on the living tissue of the leaves - The Biotic Images eventually fade over time or die with the parent plant, but,survive as C-Type and or Pigment Prints |
Cause and effect - Various Alchemic symbols - 1996 - on Neoregelia plant - Lloyd Godman
| A photosynthetic image grown into the tissue of a Bromeliad plant |
Around the late 1960s New Zealand artist Colin McCahon - produced twenty-two works, under the banner "I Will Need Words".
In 1996 I decided " I will need plants" I looked at the idea of plants as photosensitive receptors in the way film operates and began by growing signs and symbols into the living tissue of Bromeliad plants. Here is an image from that time.
I now look at the plant as an abstract photosensitive emulsion.
" ..the largest photosensitive emulsion we know of is the planet earth. As vegetation grows, dies back, changes colour with the seasons, the "photographic image" that is our planet alters. Increasingly human intervention plays a larger role in transforming the image of the globe we inhabit".
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In the mid 1990s, Godman made the connection that the process of taking photographs with film and growing plants was analogous - both use light and water - plants are in fact an abstract form of photography. In 1996 he began by growing simple images into the leaves of Bromeliad plants which in turn led to sophisticated interactive installations. Working with plants traces the development of this work.
Lloyd Godman's twin careers of serious and successful organic gardener and practicing artist of great creative energy converge in new and constantly surprising ways to make art about the ecological concerns that underly his gardening. Over almost three decades his art has widened out from relatively traditional landscape photography to include elements of performance, audience participation art and multimedia installation to explore the tensions between electronic consumer society and the ecosystem.
Artlink magazine - Ecology: Everyone's Business - Vol 25 no 4 - Dec - Jan 2006
158 pages - large format landscape (11 x 13 inches 33.02 x 27.94 cm) printed on ProLine Pear (140# Text) paper - Hardcover imagewrap
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