Artwork > growing gestures

growing gestures (detail)
pen, time, drylands grasses
8'x17'
2019
growing gestures (detail)
pen, time, drylands grasses
8'x17'
2019
growing gestures
pen, time, drylands grasses
8'x17'
2019
greenhouse time
printed chiffon
5'x12'
2019
growing gestures (detail)
pen, time, drylands grasses
8'x17'
2019
greenhouse time
printed chiffon
5'x12'
2019

The installation growing gestures emerged from durational botanical study and relationship-building with a set of drylands grasses which I planted, watered, tended, and drew as they grew from sprouts into adolescent plants. Throughout their first months above ground, I recapitulated their gestures of growth through my own drawn gestures, following their movements as a musical score. This score is then hand-drawn for a final repetition/performance on the gallery wall, collapsing the time and movements of growth into a single visual experience. The arrow of time within the piece flows in the same way that grass rootlets develop, starting from a central layer of cells and building circularly backward from the root tip.

The piece greenhouse time serves as a portal or entryway into the gallery. Greenhouse time is a composite image of the sky through the greenhouse windows on each day I visited, tended, and drew the grasses. Passing through this translucent curtain into the gallery space echoes the grasses' experience of looking through a filter to the outside world, and provides entry to a consolidated experience of time and relationship presented in the installation.

Photography: Tommy Bruce