Digital prints, Epson archival inks on Somerset Velvet 300gsm paper, 594 x 841 mm

Selection from a series produced in conjunction with the publication 
Halse for Hazel (Shearsman Books 2014), a sequence of poems about trees, their languages and forms by Frances Presley. The images were reproduced in black and white in the book.

The collaboration took place during the final year of Presley’s project funded by the Arts Council and included research at the national collections of Kew Gardens and Wakehurst Place. Images and texts chosen for the subsequent exhibition ‘In the open’, at Murray Edwards College in Cambridge (2015) include ‘charcoal’, which refers to the theme of burnt wood, both in its destructive form and as a material for creating new life and new work; ‘ash seeds’ which evoke the ancient human significance of the ash tree and its fragility; ‘retina diamond leaf’ in which the veins in whitebeam leaves become the veins of the retina, raising issues of perception and the capture of images; ‘yew tree root’ and ‘mountain pine’ are trees associated with ancient British societies, their modern incarnations and, at times, their patriarchal propaganda.