Now showing: Artist Sandra Eula Lee‘s “Two Waters (Seeds in a Wild Garden)” exhibition at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Inspired by her research on urban plant landscapes, Lee’s new show explores the “defiant gardens” that emerge in rapidly industrializing areas through drawings, photographs, and installation.

Lee finds many of her materials in the neighborhoods she lives in and around. In “MountainMountain,” for example, the rocks are construction rubble that went to sea and washed ashore everyday in Xiamen, China, where she was an Artist-in-Residence for three months. According to Lee, “Chunks of asphalt, concrete and bricks with bits of tile and ceramic were weathered by the ocean and washed ashore as rounded stones. It was a beautiful process I couldn’t ignore.” And “Seeds in a wild garden” was made from rubble Lee collected from a local construction site, including broken rebar, bricks, work gloves, gnarled wire, and bent nails, painted to match the colors of the neighborhood gardens surrounding it.

We had the opportunity to speak with Ms. Lee about her new work and show.

above: “Seeds in a wild garden,” 2010. Materials collected from construction sites in Korea, paint in colors of local gardens

In your own words, what was the inspiration for the show?
Two years ago, I traveled to Korea for a residency at IASK Goyang through the National Museum of Contemporary Art. What began as a search into Korea’s wartime history evolved into a wider interest in the landscape and how it has been reconstructed over time. Driving to see the country’s landscape, the mountains, and surrounding waters outside the cities left a great impression on me, as did the constant sight of construction.

During my time in China I was greatly affected by the gardens in the water towns of Suzhou, and later by the mountains and surrounding waters of Xiamen that related to the landscape I experienced in Korea. Over time I began to consider the garden’s relationship with the landscape~ how the garden is essentially an expression of people’s philosophy or attitude with their surroundings. Both gardens and landscape are constructions, and both are ephemeral, or cyclical, in nature. This thread shaped the travel and work I did this past year in Korea and China, considering a variety of garden structures and altered landscapes.

How did the BBG’s offerings shape the work in the exhibition?
At the BBG I started with Japanese garden traditions, spending time in the Garden and meeting with the curators of the Starr Bonsai Collection and the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, who kindly offered their time. And with the librarian’s help, I’m mining the archives and reading books that approach the garden as a container for ideas and identity. This is my interest in bringing my artwork to the BBG audience, to highlight alternate forms of garden-making and question some of the cultural assumptions that are attached.

How much of the work was made pre- and post- your residency at BBG?
The BBG continues to shape the work in the exhibition~ by that I mean new works will be added to the show during the course of my residency, which continues until the exhibition closes on June 5.

Some of the works were created during my time in Asia, though they were re-shaped and re-contextualized for the BBG. Other works were made during my residency at BBG, which began over a month ago, and are an extension of my study with access to the resources there. The “Two Waters” project continues to grow and has taken a unique turn at BBG. Come May, I will add a new series of drawings to the exhibition. By keeping the show alive with new works, I think viewers can have greater participation with my process as Artist-in-Residence.

What does the phrase “Two Waters” reference exactly?
I can say there are many references for “Two waters” that fit the work. Because of that I chose the title and enjoyed how it connects thoughts on boundaries, reflection, and spaces of contemplation.

Describe your thoughts on the concept of defiant gardens in the midst of rapidly industrializing societies.
The term comes from a incredible book, “Defiant Gardens” by Kenneth Helphand that I read when I began my residency at BBG. In it, Helphand proposes that the power of a garden can be strongest when it exists in inhospitable conditions. This incongruity highlights the humanity that gardens can represent. Focusing mostly on gardens made during wartime, Helphand’s book really resonated with me and opened my eyes, creating further connections with the work I started with in Korea. Images in the exhibition include documentation of various gardens created amongst the construction sites and historical landscape in Korea and China. And “Seeds in a wild garden” is created from rubble I collected from a local construction site in Goyang, painted in colors of the neighborhood gardens. I think the idea of a defiant garden is something that we can really relate to when living in an urban center.

How do you see man-made gardens and landscapes in the grander scheme of nature?
And spontaneous (non-man-made) gardens/landscapes ?
I see they are a part of each other and exist with each other. Man-made gardens are an expression, ephemeral in nature and need care to survive. Spontaneous gardens on the other hand grow for survival and adapt to natural cycles for survival. I think there’s a lot of grey area in between with constant negotiation of territories.

above: “MountainMountain,” 2010, Glass, sea-weathered construction rubble, acrylic sheets, spray paint

above: “Pursuing the horizon” (series), 2011, Potted street garden, China; Potted plants, street sale, China; Potted roof garden, China; Potted plants and laundry, China. Photographs, wood panel, spray paint

above: “Pursuing the horizon” (series), 2011,Bonsai plant, China; Soswaewon garden pond, Korea; Couple’s garden, China; BBG pond, U.S. Photographs, wood panel, spray paint

above: “Two waters (Seeds in a wild garden), Exhibition view,” Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2011

*All images copyright and courtesy the artist.

“Two Waters” runs through June 5th at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden:
1000 Washington Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11225
(718) 623-7200

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

A major new installation opens this weekend at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. New York-based artist Emilie Clark‘s “My Garden Pets” – a series of fluid watercolor and graphite amalgamations of flora and fauna – explores the work of 19th-century American naturalist (and Darwin collaborator) Mary Treat. Specifically, they address the concept of ‘the beneficial insect,’ depicting acts which often go unseen by the human eye – a microscopic war between plants and insects.

Explaining the inspiration behind her work, Clark says, “When I first began using Victorian women naturalists as the point of departure for my art in 2003, I discovered an unanticipated freedom. By inserting myself into the dynamics of the work of these historical naturalists and into the worlds opened up by their lives and practices, I was able to live more fully in my own constructed world of art making – a world that, like theirs, emerges out of close observation of ambiguous objects and feeds off the constant flux between categories generated by that observation. Spores, pollen, egg sacks, hives–nature is filled with tiny worlds that are at once contained and whole and yet built or woven out of infinite parts. The role of a naturalist involves the investigation of these parts, the dismantling and the reconstruction of them.”

To create the series, Clark spent four months on site at the Garden as its first artist-in-residence, researching in its libraries and talking to BBG horticulturalists, scientists, and other staff members. Her project combines works on paper in which galls, thorns, canes, beetles, aphids, nematodes, leaves and pods flow in and out of each other, in accumulation and transformation, with an audio piece drawn from the extensive correspondences between Treat and Charles Darwin and Asa Gray. In the tradition of the natural history museum, display cases will contain a variety of plant specimens sent by Treat to Harvard University, facsimiles of original correspondence, and the artist’s mapping of her process. A Victorian terrarium and armchair will complete the installation.

The exhibition title refers to a treatise on beneficial insects penned by Treat in 1887, describing a kind of unwitting cross-species collaboration, when insects help plants survive the attacks of their predators. “’My Garden Pets’ links Treat’s specific expertise in beneficial insects to the larger institution of the scientific correspondence, exploring the ways in which Treat herself might have performed something like the role of the beneficial insect for her famous male colleagues, “ says Clark.

Asked to further describe the impact of the era’s gender divide on Treat’s work, Clark explains: “Perhaps the most emblematic example of the gender divide for women professionals during the Victorian era was that Treat was commissioned by the Brooklyn Ethical Association to write an obituary tribute to Asa Gray. Her obituary was published, but because women were not allowed to be members of the association, it was presented by a man.”

She goes on, “During Treat’s life, it was extremely difficult for a woman to pursue an academic career, say in the way that Asa Gray had. The first public university to admit women was not opened until 1884. There were only a few co-ed private colleges and a hand full of women’s colleges. Even so, women who did go to college were generally taught home economics. Treat had no formal education. Asa Gray and Charles Darwin both had received formal education and Gray remained tied to an academic position for the duration of his career. In Gray’s case, the academic affiliation afforded him all sorts of perks—libraries, research funds and assistants, academic publishing, lectures and colleagues. Darwin was independently wealthy so he was not dependent on academic affiliation. Still, his relationship to his professors at Cambridge, in addition to his class position, played a key role in every opportunity—from being invited on the Voyage of the Beagle to publishing, organization affiliations and his ability to acquire specimens.”

“Mary Treat was entirely self-taught and dependent on income from her publishing. She collected numerous specimens for Gray and Darwin, but was only given postage for her efforts. She writes in a letter to Darwin:

‘Dr. Gray asked me to publish the Sarracenia article in the American Naturalist, and you may wonder at my selecting a literary magazine rather than a scientific one, but I am wholly dependent upon my own exertions, and must go where they pay best.’

“So just as beneficial insects can help deter injurious ones, allowing plants to thrive, Treat’s extensive research and specimen collection for Asa Gray and Charles Darwin, contributed to the advancement of their theories, their knowledge, and their recognition—she helped them to thrive.”

“My Garden Pets” runs March 6th – May 23rd, and is part of The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s 100th anniversary celebration. For more information, visit www.bbg.org.

Located at:
Steinhardt Conservancy Gallery,
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
900 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

Admission to the exhibition is free with admission to BBG: $8 for adults and $4 for senior citizens (65 and older) and students with ID. Children under 12, all school groups, and Garden members are admitted free at all times.

*Images: (from top) “Untitled, BBG-6 from My Garden Pets,” “Untitled, BBG-1 from My Garden Pets,” “Untitled, BBG-3 from My Garden Pets,” “Untitled, BBG-4 from My Garden Pets,” and “Untitled, BBG-2 from My Garden Pets.” All 2009. All watercolor, ink and graphite on paper, measuring 22″x15″.
All images courtesy of the artist, Emilie Clark.