To Propagate: To Graft 
Reclaimed wood, reclaimed house-paint, varnish and steel 
190 x 60 x 40 cm
2023 
Installed at Hestercombe House and Gardens.

This work tests out a new way of working, a material process that allows for reclaimed wood to be used again and again regardless of its size, using small fragments or larger pieces. By collaging together reclaimed wood and laminating it, the grain becomes the detail and its history is revealed like a palimpsest. The sculpture takes on a plant like form drawing the eye up to the much larger trees above it. It becomes ambiguous in scale and size becomes infinite, it could be a model for a larger public sculpture or architectural work. The work aims to reference ideas of piecing together fragments of the world around.  It takes inspiration from the natural world, the cutting taken to propagate a plant and the grafting of trees to make new species. The work has been made with every stage of the process questioning ways to make it more sustainable from the sourcing of material to the install method. This process makes connection to the way grafting’s purpose is to combine one plant's qualities of flowering or fruiting with the roots of another that offers vigour and resilience. As such it becomes a way of making sculpture which has less of a carbon footprint and allows for it to be cut up and reshaped. It aims to act as a way to question what it means to have a material practice in the context of climate change and to offer ideas for how to rethink our relationship to materials and to plants and trees in the context of climate change.