ODE

ODE up close in the studio !!

'ODE' is a sculpture made using wood from my local forest. It dried in my flat, and was cut and assembled there too. It was a slow process. The making was symbolic, personal & transformative.

'ODE' takes its name from John Keat's most famous works, the Odes. The frame/ sculpture is an ode to nature, and an investigation or research project as well as an art work. In making it I ask questions around the futility of art in relation to environmental / systemic collapse, the possibility of framing and re-framing (philosophically), how one might return to ancient or "superstitious" practices involving nature (specifically wishing trees). I'm also asking what an art work can *do*. Both affecting me, the maker, and generating thought outwards.

The frame will soon be photographed in the forest from which I took the fallen branches, completing the circle. This will be a kind of performance... further probing the possibility of nature herself/ itself being the "artwork" and what this means for the status of art going forward.

'can a landscape be a poem?' - coming soon !

2023-2026

(( adjacent work(s) ))