Artist's statement

I walk everywhere, and have certain places that I visit every day to document the changes in the environment.

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Phytomorphs are made in response to tiny organic plant forms that I find while walking. I collect and draw these small items and then develop the sculptural form. The places that interest me to walk are urban/suburban wild edges, as these are what I have access to. 

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Each Phytomorph is pulled from a sphere of translucent Polymer Clay; the colour and translucency gives the form a fleshy resemblance to internal organs. They are not accurate renditions, but rather explorations of the geometry of the form.  I find the tiny plant forms to be found in Australian bush totally fascinating in their geometric diversity and mathematical patterning, and observe that they all come from a point - then a sphere – to this great variety of possibility of form.

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The small forms are then placed on a spiraling silver wire, which enables them to move gently in the breeze. Each piece is approximately 15cm.

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Phytomorphs are a meditation of attention, a placing of awareness into the external environment, observing and analyzing, and then allowing a new form to evolve from the original. 
 

The two dimensional drawing series related to the 3D work is called First Form.  These images work towards defining a language of symbols based on plant forms.

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Phytomorph, noun: a motif of plant-like shape, a conventionalized representation of a plant.

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Commentary

by Amarie Bergman

‘Deciphering the matrix of connectivity between the Earth and the source of consciousness is paramount to Carole Driver. She presents the transference of her experiences with natural life forms into the medium of art. There is a poetic lightness in her work, as if she were in the centre of a mandorla between an absolute dichotomy of evanescence and stillness.  

 

The creamy, almost- translucent shapes, attached to tensile spirals become animated by the slightest current of air, as if the botanical entities had just arrived, quivering, from a parallel universe where the light of geometric perfection haloes every newborn entrancement.’