Outside: Insight - Sculpture in the Gardens 2008
&
Sculpture
in Context 2005
The National
Botanic Gardens and Airfield House (2006)
€2,500 [Dimensions - 80cm diameter, 60cm H]
The
Titan Arum:
Behind
every great man…
Sculpture
in Context is the
largest outdoor sculpture exhibition in Ireland. The National
Botanic Gardens, with its recently restored Great Palm House, offers a
magnificent setting for this major exhibition. Each year a
different panel of
selectors is invited to adjudicate this open submission event.
The
sculptures are displayed throughout the gardens, hothouses and in the
gallery above the visitor's centre. This year sculptors from
throughout Ireland and abroad present over 150 works in a range
of materials.
Now imagine for
a moment a
flower
that blooms for a few short days perhaps only two or three times in a
forty
year life span. A
full grown leaf can
stand as tall as twenty feet and forms a canopy up to fifteen feet
across. Indeed it
is difficult to find a
clearer
example of the multiplicity and splendour of the plant world than the
Titan
Arum (Amorphophallus titanium). While
it is known as the largest flower in the world, it is in fact an
inflorescence
or a cluster of flowers.
The entire
structure of this
flower is extraordinary, but what I am most fascinated by are the
female
flowers. Hidden at
the base of the huge
spadix they cling in their thousands to this fleshy column awaiting
pollination. Observers
of specimens in
the wild have said that looking down into the plant it seemed like a
light was
shining from inside. This of course is an illusion created by the
flowers to attract insects so that fertilisation can take place. The strong yet simple
architecture of these
flowers is simply beautiful.
For this exhibition I focused my energy
on this secret world inside the plant. I modelled in
stoneware clay a group of twenty flowers. In keeping with its
natural
environment, which is the rainforests of Central Sumatra, the
installation was located in a hothouse in the
Curvilinear Range at the Botanic Gardens,
clustered closely together as it would be in the wild.
They say that “behind every
great man there has to be a great woman” and it seems that
the
plant world is
no different from the human one.
The Titan Arum will be shown as part of Outside: Insight - Sculpture in the Gardens 2008 at Brigit's Garden, Roscahill, Co. Galway from 5th July - 31st August 2008.
A special thanks to Susan Conneff, Cathy Phillis and my
brother
Tom for their help with the installation.
Copyright ©2003-2008 Michelle Maher. All rights
reserved.
