As part of its centennial celebration, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has invited environmental artist Patrick Dougherty to erect a monumental branchwork sculpture on its grounds this summer. Natural History, as its called, was finished earlier this week, and took Dougherty and a team of volunteers three weeks total to construct. Together, they wove tree saplings and branches into Dougherty’s first New York commissioned sculpture, a playful, nest-like shape that calls to mind childhood, fairytale lands. The site-specific piece will stand for four seasons in the Plant Family Collection area of the Garden, through July 2011. Images below!

Brooklyn Botanic Garden
900 Washington Avenue / Eastern Parkway
(adjacent to Brooklyn Museum)
For more information, visit www.bbg.org

*above: Natural History

*above: Natural History in progress

*above: Natural History in progress

And here are samples of some of Patrick Dougherty’s earlier works…

above: Lookout Tree, 2008, Turtle Bay Arboretum, Redding, CA. Photo Credit: Tom Vlanos

*above: Trail Heads, 2005, Maple and sweet gum saplings, 30’ high. North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art

*above: Sortie De Cave (Free at Last), 2008, Jardin des Arts, Chateaubourg, France. Photo Credit: Charles Crie