Open studio: Instances of resistance

This photo montage is another piece in the Instances of Resistance series where I search out and photograph feral plant life growing among human construction / ruins.

I've used some of the same digital photos as the smaller pieces on paper below. The difference is that the photos in the large piece are printed on fabric, montaged onto a raw canvas and over-stitched using the sewing machine.

Instance of Resistance #10: Feral greenery in the underground city
digital photos on fabric over-stitched onto canvas
3' x 4'

Here's a detail of some of the stitching:



Below are a couple of the ones I printed onto Bristol Board then drew over with a soft-lead pencil.

I chose drawing as the medium because I wanted to put my own hand into the photos and make a connection between the role of subjectivity in my art practice and the un-tameable, rogue plant-life. I also thought that drawing would be the best way to animate the plants with playful and caricature-like personas.

I enjoy how these pieces invoke nostalgia (a theme in my work) with their simultaneously shadowy presence and candy-like preciousness.

Instance graffiti #4: 11 feral plants, 8 twigs and 1 cross-beam in brick ruin
digital print and pencil
2008
8" x 10"

Instance graffiti #1: 12 feral plants among others in brick ruin
digital print and pencil
2008
8" x 10"

Instances of Resistance and Daily Drawings

I haven’t had much time to get around and visit the galleries since teaching has taken up most of my recent days. The teaching has been good because it reminds me of the importance of foundational skills such as drawing and painting. The two are so much a part of my underlying experience that I don’t even think of them as separate skills in their own right. I rarely practice pure drawing or painting, and yet I often take for granted the ability to call upon them at will.

So… teaching has prompted me to uncomplicated my process a bit and do something I’ve wanted to do for several months: daily drawings. I’ve also wanted to combine the daily drawings with the Instances of Resistance project, but wasn’t quite sure where I would take it. Until a few days ago, I only knew that I wanted these isolated pieces of rogue plant-life to have a simple, candy-like preciousness to them. (I guess that would be the nostalgia I tend to play around with.) I also wanted the feral plants pushing their way up through the cracks of human construction to have an almost caricature persona and to leave a graffiti-like imprint on the ruins they inhabit.

Below are some drawings from the last few days (digital photo prints on Bristol Board that I’ve drawn over with an 8B pencil):
Instance graffiti #4: 11 feral plants, 8 twigs and 1 cross-beam in brick ruin

Instance graffiti #3: 9 feral plants in brick ruin

Instance graffiti #2: 3 feral plants above archway

Instance graffiti #1: 12 feral plants among others in brick ruin

Instances of Resistance are springing up everywhere

I took these photos outside my studio yesterday. They’re part of my ongoing documentation of instances of feral greenery that grow of their own accord in the cracks, crevices and ruins of human construction.

instances of resistance (with a bit of assistance)

A few years ago, I started a photo project, "instances of resistance," in which I searched out things growing wild in the city streets. It was sort of an extension of my thesis project Fallow where I exhibited a series of narrated still video shots of my walk through an untamed and overgrown space in Los Angeles.

here's the first image of the instances of resistance project taken in 2002

I bring this up because I just happened across the work of the artist Helen Nodding aka Ladybird, and wanted to share...

her weed enclosure

and her moss graffiti with recipe