Integration: A New Earthwork by Wendy L. Johnston (Detail shot)
In this piece, I was interested in providing an aesthetic experiences similar to the explorative, imaginative, experience of my youth, providing the headspace to investigate what the natural world is and how we behave inside of it. This piece was torn directly from my studio and reassembled in the gallery, to investigate ideas of site and its meaning to the work. The viewer was allowed to go behind the piece, further establishing its identity as artifice. This installation had a great energy walking around it, providing a real, organic feeling of experience.
I am interested in what is considered natural and what is artificial and how I see those percentages changing and how these changing percentages speed up or slow down this process of decay. This piece was made from different combinations of cement and clay. During its one month installation, spiders and mosquitos made it their home, further pushing the boundaries between artificial and natural experience of nature.