Working with Plants: plants as a living art medium
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In the mid 1990s, Lloyd Godman made the connection that the process of taking photographs with photographic film and growing plants was analogous - both use light and water - plants are in fact an abstract form of photography.
In 1996 he began by growing simple images into the leaves of Bromeliad plants as a form of bio-imprinting, which in turn led to sophisticated interactive installations of tillandsia plants ( airplants ) in galleries and other spaces in New Zealand, Australia, and the USA.
Rather than stay with passive mediums like photography, drawing and sculpture that he had worked with for decades, his concern for the environment moved him to work with a living medium that was environmentally active, and captured CO2.
Working with plants as a living art medium informed him to conceive the planet as a huge photosensitive emulsion. The largest photosensitive emulsion we know of is the planet earth. As vegetation grows, dies back, changes colour with the seasons, the "photographic image" that is our planet alters. Increasingly human intervention plays a larger role in transforming the image of the globe we inhabit. Lloyd Godman ecological artist - 2006
Working with plants traces the development of this work, it is rich in ideas and well documented with images and offers an insight into how he evolved into a leader at integrating plants into architecture in a sustainable manner working with Tillandsias ( air plants ).
Lloyd Godman's twin careers of serious and successful organic gardener and practicing artist of great creative energy converge in new and constantly surprising ways to make art about the ecological concerns that underly his gardening. Over almost three decades his art has widened out from relatively traditional landscape photography to include elements of performance, audience participation art and multimedia installation to explore the tensions between electronic consumer society and the ecosystem.
Artlink magazine - Ecology: Everyone's Business - Vol 25 no 4 - Dec - Jan 2006
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About the author
Lloyd Godman established and was head of the photo section at the School of Art Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand for 20 years before moving to Melbourne in 2005. He also instigated and helped organize several major arts events. Concern for the environment is a resilient thread that has connected his many projects. The Last Rivers Song was the first series of work where this concern in the natural environment played a pivotal role. Over decades his work has evolved from photography to sustainable integration of plants into architecture with Tillandsias (air plants).
In recent years Lloyd has shifted his art practice to work with living plant sculptures and integrating plants into architecture and the built environment.
