Prints
Roots
In the process of cleaning my garden I pulled dead plants out of the soil and left them to dry instead of throwing them on the compost pile. I became interested in the formation of abstract shapes the roots created as they overlapped and begat negative shapes. The roots freeform shapes don’t conform to a rectangular format as my previous work with cut paper had.
The root imagery is a continuation of the trees and electrical wire shapes I used previously which focus on the abstract negative shapes of the images. Roots feed and nurture plants and trees. Most invasive weeds have tenacious root systems below the ground surface while the expensive and beautiful plants can be delicate with fragile roots. Roots are living forms hidden from view and we don’t usually notice them as we pull them out of the ground at the end of the growing season where they wither and die.
In cutting, drawing, printing and painting the roots I am attracted to the idea of how they give strength and nourishment to living things and also the different meanings we give to the word and the metaphors they contain. We put down roots, we get to the root of all evil, we are rooted in place, our families are our roots…
The conceptual ideas are what interest me but the physicality of the processes of cutting, erasing, printing and painting are also what keeps me going.