Perfect Imperfect

This body of work was made in rhododendron gardens around Ireland, and particularly in Meath and features the fallen flowers. These carpets of flowers, these scatterings hidden in the shadows behind the public façade of bloom and foliage are the swan song of the flowering season.

In the making of these rhododendron photographs I am contemplating a fresh look at the beauty of gardens, a fresh look at this often unintended floral display. We so often connect beauty with perfection: full blooms at the height of their season when it comes to gardens. These intimate views of gardens feel special to me. These scatterings are the garden’s secret. The window of opportunity is narrow; the petals quickly rot and become absorbed into the bare mulch under the plants. It’s not usually where the gardener intended us to look. The scene has not been contrived and prepared. The camera gives me an excuse to look beyond the surface, to go behind what we are so often told to look at.

Background
Rhododendrons are so connected to the gardens of Ireland. Most were planted in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the great age of exotic plant collecting.There were private and institutionally sponsored expeditions to the Himalayas. Almost all of the rhododendrons in cultivation here are derived from China and Tibet, and some from India. The estates of Ireland and the western Atlantic seaboard in particular were ideally suited to rhododendron cultivation. There was space, acid soil and a climate that in many ways mimicked the warm, wet Himalayan monsoons. Once back in these isles the plants were propagated and dispersed as an insurance policy against accidents and disease, but equally because people wanted to have the latest thing. Science, horticulture and foreign travel were the fashions of the time, and amongst the gentry there was the finance to support them. Many didn’t even see the results of their labours and the plantings were often for the appreciation of the generations that followed.

The project was inspired by two experiences:

1/ My own childhood in a new suburban housing estate. At the end of the cul-de-sac was an old Victorian plant nursery with giant rhododendrons that each spring put on a spectacular flower display. I and friends played in the undergrowth. Later these trees were bulldozed to make room for more houses. It was my first environmental shock.

 

2/ I was searching for the autochromes* of the early 20th century semi professional garden photographer, Sophia Wallace, from Ardnamona House on Lough Eske, County Donegal. Sophia photographed, among other things, the rhodendrons on her family’s estate, many of which had been donated by the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin. Much of Sophia’s work was published in one of the best known garden magazines of the time Gardening Illustrated. 

* 100 years ago in 1907 the Lumiere autochrome plates became the first commercially available colour photographic medium.

 

Solo exhibtion

Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co. Meath, Ireland Tel: +353-46-9092300
August 2-4 2007 and August 13-31 2007