Dark Flowerings · Richard Noyce

DARK FLOWERINGS

Art, inevitably, is involved with the passage of time and place. It is necessarily about the world and our relationship with it. That world is changing faster than ever before, approaching a tipping point beyond which the effects of environmental change may well be irreversible. The art world itself is becoming increasingly precarious, subject not only to market forces but also to global events and shifting fashions. Artists must find their own position and the direction in which to look in this evolving world. Some choose to enter a self-referential loop with the art of the past, others to find a means for transgressing norms, others yet seek to challenge and admonish those who are engaged in the headlong despoliation of the planet. Alexandra Haeseker comes into that third category, with a considerable body of work over many years that seeks to highlight aspects of our threatened ecological nexus, working with techniques that push the boundaries of art, often at a scale that challenges the perceptions of those who encounter it. In the project that culminates in the exhibition at the Vernon Public Art Gallery she offers her response to the natural world that is in grave danger.

Each of us has a deeply personal relationship with that natural world. After all, that is where we live. Whether our homes are made in noisy and crowded cities or deep in the wilderness we are surrounded by other living organisms. The ability of nature to reassert its place in the man-made world is fascinating and instructive. In the aftermath of WW2 in England it was common to see large swathes of Rosebay Willowherb growing on the rubble of bombed out buildings, hiding the tangles of rubble and broken lives, bringing softness and colour to the remnants of devastation. The plant, known in North America as Fireweed, together with purple Buddleia, provided not only a source of joy in dark times but also a source of food for insects and butterflies. Now those ruins have their turn been replaced by high rise offices and apartment blocks, the roofs of which are patrolled by Peregrine Falcons more accustomed to wild forests and quarries; they are there to keep the numbers of pigeons under some sort of control. Foxes, and more recently badgers, are now commonly seen in suburban night streets. In Llandudno in North Wales the wild goats that live on the nearby headland have started to stray into the streets and gardens of this small seaside town.

But all is not well, as the negative effects on the global environmental become more evident, and as the industrialisation of our world continues unabated. Looking closely at the natural world in the deeply rural area of Wales where I live it is clear that much has changed over the past quarter century. While some of this is due to the wider impact of climate change, much more seems to be due to the changes in local farming practice. Encouraged by the agro-chemical companies the formerly rich and sustainable eco-system of arable fields, with lush mixed grasses and established hedges, has been turned into huge maize fields of chemically fertilised soil, stripped of the shelter provided by dividing hedges. This practice involves treating the whole field with aggressive herbicide before planting seed beneath sheets of plastic that is supposedly biodegradable, but which degrades into micro plastics that persist in the soil or wash into the watercourses.

As a result, the natural traditional landscape has been utterly changed, creating a local impact with knockon effects that spread much further afield. The maize is not grown for animal feed, but to be harvested and sold for processing into bio-diesel. The cleared fields have become barren. The birds and insects that once gathered and fed on the wild flowers there have gone, the fields are silent and the local environment is impoverished. The chemically tainted rainwater runs off into local watercourses and that in turn causes serious damage to the ecology of nearby rivers and the consequent reduction in the numbers and species of fish, invertebrates and birds. Nothing happens without consequences and we are finding, perhaps too late, just how intimately our lives are interconnected with and dependent on the world in which we live. What I have observed in the world in which I live adds to the reported experience of other people in every corner of the world. Superficially, what appears to be of no great importance beyond the locality is, when taken together with other reports, seen to be part of a widening pattern of ecological destruction that will be difficult if not impossible to reverse.

Alexandra Haeseker lives and works in the foothills of the Rockies in Southern Alberta, an environment greatly different to mine, with a different story of ecological change to tell. She has for many years cast an informed and penetrating gaze on her environment, whether at a local, national or international scale. Her explorations have led her to produce major art installations that seek to highlight the effects and dangers of deep changes in the world. She has developed distinctive techniques derived from her academic training in painting and printmaking, using materials and techniques derived from developing technology and processes. In particular she uses those of printmaking, not so much in the service of producing numbered editions as for the ways in which they allow for reproducibility where necessary and for the production of particular colour and texture surfaces. The work she produces is immersive, being frequently at a large scale and creating an installed environment in which visitors to her exhibitions can confront and consider the ways in which she presents her ideas. In this sense, just as the natural environment is best experienced in person rather than through the filter of photographic or video mediums, her work is best appreciated on a personal and individual level. This requires that the viewer adopts a collaborative willingness to engage with what is presented, to consider not only the surface of the work but also its motivation and its message.

In her statement on the Vernon exhibition, the artist positions her work as part of a long scientific and artistic trajectory reaching across time and space. Reading this allows the viewer to understand more deeply the aims and background of this important exhibition. Such information is essential if those who encounter the work are to see beyond the surface and understand that no work of art exists only at one point in history, but that it is as much part of the flow of time as are the seasons. If that is the only perceived function of the

work, the reason for seeing it in the gallery, then that is a start. Beyond that there are opportunities to engage with the oversized and strangely coloured leaves, moths and insects, and to become part of the projected light that falls on the floor. More than that there are two artist’s books that, upon reading, add depth to the personal history of a committed artist whose continuing engagement with the natural world and the forces that threaten it provides a great deal of food for thought.

Richard Noyce May 2022

Richard Noyce (b. 1944) is a British writer, artist, scholar and art critic, well-known especially for his important international role in the world of printmaking. He writes and speaks regularly on the visual arts and, in addition to many reviews and articles published in British and European magazines, he has written several books on contemporary painting, graphic arts, and printmaking, such as Contemporary Painting in Poland (1995), Contemporary Graphic Art in Poland (1997), Printmaking at the Edge (2006), Critical Mass: Printmaking Beyond the Edge (2006, reprinted 2008, 2010, 2013) and Printmaking Off the Beaten Track (2013).

He was awarded the 1996 AAASS/Orbis Polish Book Prize and is an experienced international competition juror, serving as President of the Awards Jury at the Kraków International Print Triennial, 2003, 2006, 2009 as well being a juror for numerous other international print and drawing biennials and triennials. He was the Commissioner for the British participation in the Ulsan International Woodcut Biennial, South Korea, 2019.