Phytology is a site in East London that brings artists and botanists together to explore the medicinal properties of wild plants in urban environments.
I have drawn from the site’s history to create four artworks to be displayed on a 48 sheet billboard. The first is inspired by the earliest reference to the site in the 18th century, when it was a field sustaining a community. One hundred years later, we find a church and impassioned worship, sustenance of a different kind. Then, in the 20th century, war, bombs and manmade destruction arrives. Finally, the land’s present incarnation – a place nurtured by people, which nurtures them in return.
My work imagines these slices of the space’s life that has seen nurture, worship, violence and then nurture again. Each new piece of work is layered upon the previous image to create a single art work.
