The series Prospero’s Branch (solar plate etching) was begun in the Botanical Garden in Oxford, England, in 2005, and was inspired by a lecture by the philosopher Lydia Goehr the evening before. The series employs restraint and boundaries, along with random chance and surprise. Placing a spiral-bound sketchbook on the ground in several locations in the garden, shadows falling across the blank pages were photographed in succession, sometimes capturing minute and subtle transformations in form and light, sometimes capturing dramatic shifts in shapes and configurations. This “Book of Nature” points to the natural response of the mind to recognize metaphor (reading alternate readings of the images) and to create meaning when looking into an image.
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Jil Evans 