Here is an example of some experiments with colour that I have been doing, based on how birds and humans interpret colours. Although birds can see many more colour Variations than the human eye, they often view white as a sign of danger. After visiting Broomhill, I felt that using bright or light colours would allow the sculpture to be more visible against the dark foliage of the valley whilst also imitating birds plumage.

I visited Broomhill earlier this week and found a perfect tree to install my artwork on. The first attached image is of a little twig with lichen and moss growing on it that I found at Broomhill and thought was beautiful. The second is a working sketch with dimensions that is aiding me in planning my sculpture.

‘Arboreal Armour’ is a site specific sculpture constructed of bird spikes commonly used as a deterrent for avian pests. The spikes are installed on mass over a tree, engulfing its trunk and lower branches as though insidiously growing, like a virus. When constructed on mass, the spikes become web-like. The sculpture will appear as though it has taken on a life of its own, growing over the tree like organic matter.

‘Arboreal Armour’ explores the often strained relationship between man and nature and the human desire to sterilize our environment at an aesthetic detriment. Bird spikes offer protection to the precious objects at their centre, simultaneously shielding and smothering the very object they aim to protect. These modes of protection inevitably imply the possibility of threat, exposing the futile human aspiration for order, cleanliness and immortality. Does our need to use such means of protection suggest that we are a fearful society, scared of nature; the alien; the animal; the other? Is this fear a result of our evolutionary state where, whilst our brains have increased in size, our bodies have become soft and weak? Despite human intervention, here nature somehow prevails, growing within the bird spikes.