Dr Greg Leach: opening The Dark Reactions by Michelle Culpitt

In recent years Nomad Art have brought us a succession of exhibitions and artists that have centred on interpreting the world of plants. We have seen a great diversity of approaches, techniques and subjects. This evenings opening presents us a completely different approach to the plant kingdom to anything we have seen in these earlier exhibitions. The techniques that Michelle uses take us back to the earliest approaches for recording images in the 1800’s - anthotypes, cyanotypes and Daguerreotypes. The very words evoke old plant images from ancient herbals and pharmacopoeias.

There are lots of themes and influences running through the pieces that form this exhibition – there is a lot happening here in this small space.

  • the transfer of plants to other places;
  • the knowledge, stories and history associated with plants,
  • how plants (with or without human assistance) can change the landscape – for better or worse with invasive aliens or the recovery of native plants in damaged landscapes,
  • reference to early colonial attitudes and early plant collectors such as Mueller and Foelsche,
  • the biochemical processes in plants
  • to the early stages in evolution of image making processes.

I particularly like the anthotypes – the predominant technique in the exhibition. These highly ethereal and ghostly images remind us that plant life can be transient, that species can disappear from the landscape – but can also make alien appearances in other landscapes on other continents and that native plants can rise like a phoenix from the ashes in trashed landscapes such as the old goldfields of central Victoria.

With only a few minutes I’ll touch briefly on a couple of these themes – from my botanical perspective.

The title of the exhibition (The Dark Reactions) takes us down to the molecular level within the plant into the living biochemistry and refers to the process that all life on earth is utterly dependent upon – photosynthesis. The first part of the photosynthetic process captures light energy.The second part which doesn’t require light is the building of sugars from CO2 out of the atmosphere and so are referred to as the ‘Dark Reactions’. Plants produce a huge diversity of pigments - compounds that interact with light and reflect colour into our world – from those that capture light for photosynthesis to those that produce the colours in flowers, fruits and leaves. Michelle uses the pigments and photosensitivity of plant tissue as the raw material for her anthotypes – deriving the image of the plant from the plants own biochemistry.

As Michelle states in her catalogue – the ‘Dark Reactions’ also alludes to the dark side of plants – plants behaving badly – particularly when accompanying humans that are busy changing the landscape. This is a strong theme in many of the subjects in these works.

From her native Victoria, Michelle has travelled and worked recently in Ireland and Iceland which presented her with new plants to observe but also a familiarity in seeing some of her despised Victorian weeds in their native European habitat.

Examples

Gorse (#17 When the gorse is out of blossom …) in its native Europe is a much loved plant with brilliant yellow flowers that inspire and herald a change of season; used as food, livestock fodder, fuel and an important wildlife habitat. Introduced into Australia as a quick fix ‘green’ fencing due to its spines – it rapidly escaped and become a much cursed declared noxious weed with nothing to commend it. The same story is told through Ragwort #2, #3, #12 “Your daisy, my weed”. Michelle saw Ragwort in its native Ireland and heard the stories of its medicinal uses and delightful Celtic folklore with the flowers being used by fairies as transport. Back in Victoria – another despised declared noxious weed.

Another theme in the selection of many of the plant subjects is the history of uses and stories around plants. Angelica (#8, #14, #15) which has the wonderful scientific name of Angelica archangelica and amongst its common names ‘The Root of the Holy Ghost’. This comes from the early stories of the Archangel appearing to the 14th Century physician Mattheus Sylvaticus and informing him of the plants medicinal properties. Angelica is an important European medicinal and in one of the early herbals states that "it cureth the bitings of mad dogs and all other venomous beasts”. Obviously a very powerful plant! Its other important medicinal use is as a flavour in liqueurs such as Chartreuse, Benedictine and Vermouth. When I look at the images of Angelica I could really be looking at a 16th century herbal – instructing me on how to identify the plant and telling me of its uses and preparation.

Get up close to this exhibition. Take the opportunity to talk to Michelle about her techniques – they are truly fascinating.

Congratulate Michelle – her first solo commercial exhibition

Thank Nomad for yet another different view into the plant kingdom.