Deep Roots at Edinburgh's City Art Centre
Tessa Williams previews a multi-media show with a most timely environmental message, on at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh through until February 2024
Detail, Naomi Mcintosh, 'Lost Song (Cuckoo)', 2021. © the artist. Photo: Ben Addy
EIGHT ARTISTS – One universal theme… . Trees, bound together by the roots. These artists have come together for a new show opening at Edinburgh's City Arts Centre into the New Year.
From all over the world, the artists unite in the concept that now we need our bond with nature to be stronger than ever before. Everything, from special scents inspired by the first ever forest fire, to films about bark, resonates around trees.
Andy Goldsworthy, 'Chalkstone crushed into powder. Thrown inside the wood to reveal shafts of light. Berrydown Foundation, Hampshire. August 31, 2013.' © Andy Goldsworthy
Deep Rooted unveils work by Dalziel + Scullion, Anya Gallaccio, Andy Goldsworthy, Andrew Mackenzie, Naomi Mcintosh, Katie Paterson and Hanna Tuulikki. Together they explore the relationship between people and how the relationship to nature has changed in the last years.
The artworks range from surround-sound audio and digital choreography to paintings and photographs to hand-crafted objects made from wood.
Some of the works touch on current ecological issues, others look at exploring the fragile relationships that co-exist with nature and capture its beauty.
Two photographs by Andy Goldsworthy capture ephemeral works made in nature, with the artist using his own body, as well as materials and conditions he encounters in a place. Goldsworthy often spends hours photographing the changes that occur as a work responds to time, weather, decay, growth and light.
Dalziel + Scullion's photographic series Unknown Pines, looks at the bark surfaces of six different species of pine tree which are also shown alongside their film Imprint.
Naomi Mcintosh, an artist who works mainly in wood and is based in the Cairngorms National Park, looks at the passing of time, seasonality and the ever-present experience of nature.
One of her artworks in the show, Lost Song, is a series of vessels made from charred wood, which reveal the bird song of five globally threatened species, which are now in decline due to changes in agricultural practices and loss of habitat.
Andrew Mackenzie's paintings start with an experience of somewhere he went on a walk or field trip. They combine architectural forms such as fencing and metal structures with organic vistas. The four works in Deep Rooted show a woodland near the artist's home, where trees were felled by the horrific storm Arwen in 2021.
Scottish artist, Katie Paterson collaborates with scientists and researchers across the globe, which consider our spot on Earth in the context of geological time and change.
Her artwork To Burn, Forest, Fire looks at the scent of the 'first-ever forest' on Earth, and the scent of the 'last forest' through the creation of bespoke incense sticks.
Anya Gallaccio is also known for creating ephemeral artworks, often using organic materials, which illustrate the fragile challenges of life cycles. She also employs more traditional materials as a means of pausing the effects of time and preserving living matter. Her work I Can't Get No has two holly twigs cast in bronze with red glass berries, a transformation that provides immunity from decay.
Deep Rooted is accompanied by an illustrated exhibition catalogue with an essay by the writer and arts critic Sarah Urwin Jones.
After lockdowns and the effects of the pandemic many people became more attached to their own park, allotment, woods and forests with a fervour never before known, who knows where the Trees will lead us next!
Deep Rooted, City Art Centre, Edinbirgh
November 18, 2023 - February 25, 2024
