14.03–28.03.21EXHIBITION COMMISSION Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in "The Word for World is Forest" at Window135
Blind Horizon or Bookmark found in The Word for World is Forest” is a large hanging work composed of mesh, Venetian blind slats, dried dahlias, Swiss milk bottle tops and small squares of mirror. The starting point for this work was trying to envisage the loss to our collective imagination via mass extinction, which, being completely unable to visualise and slightly overwhelmed by a sense of earnestness, initiated a turn to natural world references and symbolism.
The cut- out blind form is inspired by an ocean sunset and the sense of the sun’s rays hitting the water. Two maquettes of the work (made from re-purposed diary and see – through ribbon) are attached to the piece that went through many different forms. These included a double or reversed sunset, which look like an i and ! next to each other, which felt like a fitting reference to our view and use of the planet.
For more information please visit Window135
27.02–28.03.21EXHIBITION COMMISSION Fieldwork I at Ken Space
Fieldwork I is a reflection of an internal landscape and started off with a rough sketch imagining the five seasonal elements wood, fire, earth, metal and air of chi kung practice flowing into a central void. As the work developed via the intuitive drawing of lines with millet and heather the concept behind the work expanded rooting itself in the philosophy of natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka who advocated for observation and experiments in farming over intellectual knowledge. This piece aims at capturing this inquisitiveness whilst also encouraging exploration of our individual nature and collective responsibility towards our environment.
12.11–23.01.21Merry - Go - Round WINTER EXHIBITION at JGM Gallery
This year Metafleur is collaborating exclusively with JGM Gallery, creating an everlasting series of Christmas wares, which can be borught out every year. There are three spruce designs to choose from, each with a heavy helping of eucalyptus, alongside one dried sculptural wreath, ring table stand and dried freestanding flowers.
Smaller version of "Fieldworks," the hanging floral tapestries first developed for Glasscloud Gallery can be viewed in the JGM Group Exhibition. These "Flipside Gardens" act as learning utensils for the artist uniting and using the cut flower installation world to envisage the growing seasons of Gardens, and enjoy a sense of long and forward thinking that garden design brings and a sense of shifting perspectives which is so valauble in 2020.
Metafleur Xmas Wreath "Eucalyptus Harvest" featured in The Arts Newspaper Christmas Wish List
11.09–19.10.20EXHIBITION COMMISSION
For Glass Cloud Gallery, McCabe has created ‘Fieldworks’ an installation of floral tapestries made from dried, repurposed and foraged floral materials inserted into a mesh structure in gestures almost like painting. Given their exposure to sunlight the materials will change colour over the course of the exhibition, reminding us of the seasons and referencing the fascination for bringing nature indoors as well as our increased observation of nature this year. Atop of the natural background are badges of chopped up ephemera from exhibitions visited, botanical drawings and the artist’s archive of photographs ‘inspired by nature’. These tokens insert a sense of distance from floral material and reading of landscape, teasing our ability to understand nature and our representation of it.
Review of exhibition by Miriam Al Jamil on Lucy Writers
16.05–26.07.20EXHIBITION COMMISSION
A collaboration by OmVed Gardens, Thrown and Metafleur, Gatherers was originally formed as part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival and with lockdown restrictions halting plans, the exhibition was re-thought for the digital sphere, presented through Virtual Reality, online workshops, film and photographs.
Using the medium of ceramics as a starting point, the exhibition includes wild clay projects that stretch from Tambourine Mountain, Australia, right back to OmVed Gardens itself.
The ceramic work and exhibition content is further expanded by foraged floral displays from Metafleur. These include an intertwined collaborative wild garden installation by Metafleur’s founder Alice McCabe and ceramicist Zuleika Melluish on the central stage. With Alice’s usual suppliers suspended, Metafleur uses solely flowers dried from previous events together with materials from friends offcuts and materials.
08.06VIDEO COMMISSION _ National Maritime Museum_ World Oceans' Day
The circumpolar current is responsible for keeping Antarctica cool – it is also a part of a larger network of ocean currents that regulate the planet’s climate and deliver nutrients to all marine life.
In this special demonstration of chi kung, Antarctica is represented as a bouquet, with hands removing and swirling the stems in movements associated with restoring equilibrium in chi kung. The stems, made using foraged dried alliums, peel on and off in addition / subtraction of ice due to hot and cold currents. The crossed stems of the bouquet are the central focus to suggest balance both above and under the waterline, and the functioning relationship between both.
I hope the work makes you question scale and balance – how our own realigning can hopefully be reflected in larger systems throughout the world which we must respond to collectively in order to re-address the harmony.
Alice McCabe - Metafleur
https://www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/exhibitions-events/world-oceans-day-2020/antarctica-crafts
08.2019PHOTO COMMISSION _ collaboration with photographer Sebastian Boetcher
"Closing the Borders opened the Gates of Hell" is inspired by the many levels of purgatory in Dante's Inferno and created as a response to political events for a private commission. Red hot poker flowers alongside the vibrant firecracker morph between the balls of fire of the protea heads, all linked by the licking flames of the orange and yellow stained ruscus foliage. Everything is bent out of shape in this double hanging arrangement, somewhat reminiscent of a figure of eight and infinity symbol, suggesting everlasting entrapment.
