The name - studio LAB xeric - combines the creativity of a studio, the experimentation of a laboratory and encompasses the xeric Tillandsia plants I work with (xeric - plants that grow in dry environments and do not require auxiliary water)
“Lloyd Godman is one of a new breed of environmental artists whose work is directly influencing 'green' building design......"Godman's installations are the result of a unique blend of botanical science, environmental awareness and artistic expression. All three elements are intrinsic to the practical realisation of his polymathic vision". John Power
For decades Lloyd Godman has been involved in the arts and creativity. From photographing acts like Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Joe Cocker in the early 1970s, then establishing and heading the photographic section at the Dunedin School of Art for 20 years, his own creative practice has always asked searching questions and pushed, conceptual, aesthetic, and technical boundaries.
After an arts expedition in 1989 that he instigated to the subantarctic Islands of New Zealand, he began using camera-less photography (photograms) in his work. The technique continued for several series until he began exploring photosynthesis as a photographic process to create ephemeral images on the leaves of Bromeliad plants. "Rather than photographing or drawing plants, plants became the photograph"
He conceived the earth as a abstract 3 dimensional photograph. “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”. Lloyd Godman 2006
This work evolved into intricate, interactive installations of living plants in galleries including, 101 Collins St Melbourne 1998, Temple Gallery Dunedin N.Z. 1999, Blue Oyster Gallery Dunedin N.Z. 2002, and MOCA Ga, USA in 2005, Chateau de Blacons France 2007, Burrinja Gallery Victoria 2008.
With the growing climate crisis came the realization, around 2010, that the xeric Tillandsia plants he was working with were ideal to integrate into architecture in a fully sustainable manner consequently he moved from a traditional approach and focused all his energy on plants as a living medium.
“I aim to create works that not only speak to the climate crisis but are environmentally active – that is they clean the air and absorb CO2 and other pollutants. Rather than creating new art works that require climate-controlled storage of a gallery vault, I aim to create living works that live out-doors and control the climate while they are in storage”.
From 2011, he developed a series of suspend wind rotating plant sculptures, the concepts of the Urban Dead Pixel, and of Alpha Space where plants in urban environments could grow on sites suspend between buildings.
His xeric plant work and concepts are now gaining great interest and traction. He is currently experimenting with 100% plastic free plant integrations on urban structures and creating vertical gardens and other urban biophilic applications that are designed to out live the life of the building. Installations that can be moved, adapted to a new location or even relocated back to a new building on the very same site.
Perhaps these words from John Power offer a succinct description of his work.
“Art and the built environment cannot be viewed in isolation from each other. The functionality of our finest public and private spaces has always rested on solid aesthetic and spiritual principles; our greatest buildings either showcase challenging artworks or incorporate artistic designs into their very fabric, reminding us that buildings without art are mere shelters. Artist Lloyd Godman is at the forefront of a modern trend to bring an appreciation of the natural world into our structural domains. Buildings do not rest ‘above’ or ‘outside’ a landscape, separated from the surrounding environment. On the contrary, structures interact with the natural world as objects that cast shadows, consume resources and provide rich habitats for life. Godman’s living, plant-based artworks reinforce the necessary connectedness of buildings and the wider environment. Not only do these artworks convey powerful messages and philosophies of sustainable and ethical physical interaction, but they also reach out beyond ideas to become part of the actual structure – as physical objects, Godman’s artworks are purifiers of the air as well as the soul, suppliers of colour as well as calmness, and filters of water as well as the human spirit. ...... it is highly unusual for an artist to forge new aesthetic, philosophical and architectural directions through his work; Godman, however, has managed to use his diminutive plants to convey global concepts, and in the process participate in a new wave of appreciation for plants in the built environment”.
Lloyd has an MFA from RMIT and is credited with over 40 solo exhibitions and 200 group exhibitions.
He is a proficient and entertaining speaker and has lectured at many institutions including: Architecture Dept University of Auckland, St Martins School of Art London, L'Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Architecture Dept Melbourne University, The Art Institute of Atlanta, RMIT, Deakin University, BKK Architecture.
Lloyd is available for speaking engagements.
STUDIO: Involved in fine arts for decades Godman is well informed about the roll a studio space plays in the creative act. In fact, he lives with his partner Tess at another creative studio, the Baldessin Studio, a print making studio in the bush about 40 km outside Melbourne. He is skilled in developing ideas through the design process to resolve projects, both in the real and virtual worlds
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LABORATORY: Plants have played an important role in Godman’s life since 1973 when he lived in a 3-story tree house in Hawaii. Through the project Tillandsia SWARM he has experimented with the resilience of Tillandsia plants in the built environment. Another aspect of his experimentation with these plants is developing more resilient plants through hybridization using cross pollination techniques.
XERIC: Xeric plants are plants that grow in dry hot climates. They have evolved many biological processes like using a CAM cycle to grow and trichome leaf cells to uptake all moisture and nutrients rather than using roots.
