Artists books — photography

my forest/my garden explores plant impressions on handmade paper. It is labor-intensive work that is at the same time research, meditation and renewal.

When the pandemic abruptly infiltrated our lives, the absence of physical human connection together with the limitation of movement, made me turn at once inwards and into nature.

Walks in the forest, as an extension of my own garden, provided not only solace but also inspiration. The scrupulous attention to the seasonal change on nature seemed to distract and displace the anxiety of the inevitable traces of the passage of time in my own life. Recording traces of the plants was a desperate attempt to retain their transient color, the fleeting life.

I embarked in a quest for the perfect botanical print - not a ghosty glimpse, but the well defined faithful image of the matrix. I researched the interplay between the plant material and the paper. I made cotton and milkweed paper to receive and retain the clearest impression. Plants became then both printing matrix and printing surface.

As a feverish alchemist, I planted, boiled, extracted, sowed, coated, grew, dried, harvested, classified, steamed, pressed, simmered, scribbled, gathered, mixed, strained. And waited for the magic to happen.

The result is a book that opens into silent reflections and splashes of color that one can visit at one's own pace while filling the silence with one's own words - just as it happens when one walks in the forest.