Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Middleton, the National Botanic Garden of Wales, Carmarthenshire
5 July – 31 October
Reviewed by: Peter Bodenham
'Explorations' at Middleton, the National Botanic Garden of Wales, is currently showcasing site-specific works from eleven international artists. The diverse pieces range across various disciplines and conceptual concerns presenting engaging and, on occasions, evocative sculptural interventions.
Philippa Lawrence makes interventions in several locations. Bound, an ancient dead tree bound in white cloth, has high visual impact, echoing ancient forms of reverence. Lawrence's tree stands out visually and conceptually as an eloquent and majestic sculptural statement. Her other two works are more decorative and whimsical. Rare Blooms comprises several rotary washing lines and 20,000 multi-coloured clothes pegs, creating a visual play on clustered flower bed designs. Critically Rare Blooms needed to exist in a great number to fully maximise the concept and visual experience.
Angharad Pearce Jones used flowers to recreate the signature of Samuel Lapidge, the landscape gardener responsible for designing the original eighteenth century gardens. Pearce Jones' simple and intelligent intervention draws the viewer's attention to the historic role of the landscape gardener and the contemporary role of horticulture in urban planning, specifically the fascinating phenomenon of landscape design appearing on our roadsides. Among other successful text-based works on site are Craig Wood's series of signposts, tastefully executed in the style of The National Trust. Wood makes no attempt to compete with the impressive gardens or architecture but aims to trigger social economic and historical thought.
Entering the Great Glasshouse you come across seven giant vertical organic forms precariously constructed from reclaimed eucalyptus wood flooring. Aeneas Wilder assembled the impressive forms like large Jenga structures without the use of glue or fixings. As you leave the Great Glasshouse you encounter Buster Simpson's Cydlifiad (Confluence), a semi-circle of galvanised buckets balanced around the rim of the walled mirror pool. The buckets feature images depicting down-pipes affixed to buildings at Middleton, indicating the on-site water system. Cydlifiad encourages us to make important environmental connections between our romantic view of water systems and the unnecessary quantities of chemicals we flush down our waste pipes.
The Stable Block area, with its pleasing mix of Georgian architecture and sexy modernist use of structural glass, is the site of Richard Harris' impressive turf structure. Harris effectively works with the glass structure by intersecting the space with turf walls creating a circular design which runs from the outside, indoors. The works sensual materiality and formal play of spatial qualities creates an evocative and engaging work, leaving space for the individual to build their own associations.
Tim Davies' symbolically loaded video installation deals with the cultural and medicinal significance of flowers. The siting of this quiet forty-minute video is well placed within the 'Physicians of Myddfai' exhibition. Clearly the work calls for maintaining bio-diversity and its associated social and cultural richness.
Overlooking a lake, Trudi Entwistle skillfully formed and moulded a hillside into large sweeping geometric folds. Critically, the siting of Folds seems incongruous, raising the broader question in my mind about the place of contemporary visual artists working within the context of the garden. Gardening in the eighteenth century was possibly one of our greatest arts. In the nineteenth and twentieth century we saw the applied arts disenfranchised from the fine arts creating a hegemony, relegating the art of landscape artist or gardener to something less than painting and sculpture. The collaboration between the artists, co-funders Cywaith Cymru (Artworks Wales), and staff at the botanic garden has created an interesting and stimulating dialogue between site-specific art, landscape, the garden and architecture.
Writer detail:
Peter Bodenham is an artist and writer based in Cardigan.
Venue detail:
National Botanic Garden of Wales
Middleton Hall, Llanarthne, CARMARTHEN SA32 8HG
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