Market Garden Series

As frost approaches and the growing season draws to a close, the fleeting beauty of what was is transitioning, our source of food coming to an end. Like a soup or a stew, this series features a composite of what was salvaged at the end of the growing season. These images reflect small moments and intricate details, entangled with memories from a seasons growth, making reference to the Canadian painter J. E. H. MacDonald’s 1916 painting The Tangled Garden.

As Summer fades and transitions toward winter the transformations among all plants in the garden are striking, often bordering on the grotesque. The vibrant growth of summer yield to decay and remarkable patterns emerge. Desiccated leaves curl into extraordinary shapes, and colours shift and fade with the shortening days. What was food has transformed, now headed towards the compost pile and returning to the soil. The last flowers appearing amidst fading foliage look somehow strange, their resilience a reminder of the imperative of life. We barely remember that it is death that feeds life.

With the end of the summer season, the air is tinged not only with the crispness of the killing frost but also of larger cycles we experience on a global level. Grief is in the air.

Image List

archival pigment on cotton rag

1. Field Greens #1,                              vertical format,    40  x  32”
2. Field Greens #2,                               vertical format,    40  x  32”
3. Frosted Greens #2,                           vertical format,    40  x  32”
4. Frosted Greens #3 w/border          vertical format,    40  x  32”
5. Tangled Garden,                               horizontal format  40 x 50”
6. Tangled Garden with Flowers,       horizontal format  40 x 50”
7. Kitchen Garden #1,                          horizontal format  40 x 50”
8. Kitchen Garden #2,                          horizontal format  40 x 50”