the forest

Thought behind the thought:

The University of Pune campus is a sprawling beautiful place in a city that bursting at its seams. The trees on the campus have reduced to a third of what they used to be. The whole area seems to change and turn into something new at different times of the day and through the year in different seasons. Having had the privilege of living on the campus for twenty three years in the staff quarters, every time I visit the place I feel as if I have returned to a place called home. When I sit under the great Banyan tree in the centre of the campus I can sense that many have come here and shared a part of their life. The woods have listened and kept each word closely guarded. Not a thing will be told or shared with another person. Not even the harmless breeze as it casually moves around us. This moment and these stories belong only to two, me and my beloved woods.

About the Art:
Ellie Davies lives in London and works in the woods and forests of the UK. She got her MA in Photography from London College of Communication in 2008.

Come with Me: This was a series made in the New Forest in the South of England from where the artist hails. Each piece was made in the forest on site and the hands-on approach of the artist is central to the execution. Artificial elements are deliberately used to consciously create a “CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE”. Materials such as paint, powder, wool and paper have been used to create pathways. She has tried to pick the natural line of movement through the space by tracing animal paths, the sweep of the eye, or the curve of the land. The process of making is spontaneous and solitary. The bond between the artist and the woods is evidently a secret.

Another Green World: According to the artist is , “It is about discovering something unidentified and peculiar; revisiting the possibilities of early explorers and trying to experience the landscape with an open-mindedness wrought from the potential to find something new and unexpected, to recapture the excitement and awe of the pioneers, botanists, scientists and naturalists to whom all possibilities were open.” The mystery, aura and secrets of the forests are the things that the artist focuses on in this series. Insect eggs, shells, oceanic diatoms, sea anemones and corals are the inspirations behind the forms and materials like seaweeds, river weed, moss, mares tail, bracken, heather, lichen, chalk dust and leaf litter have been used to disguise or distinguish the forms.

Credits:

http://www.elliedavies.co.uk/images/

http://www.elliedavies.co.uk/