The Palm and the Vine

This painting is an image from a section of our backyard. The painting draws on a common theme throughout my work around narratives that play out amongst objects in slow motion, often with a point of tension or anticipation, in this case the vine from our neighbour’s garden that slowly creeps over the fence looking for plants to clasp onto.

The vine often gravitates towards this particular ruffled fan palm, and as it slowly creeps along the fence the palm sends out fruit in a corresponding direction. It is like a slow battle, or perhaps a tender moment, that plays out over weeks as one tries to touch the other.

In contrast the shadows on the fence mesh are ever changing throughout the day as the sun moves across and it captures the shadows of different plants and folds.

The painting uses strong verticals throughout the composition to try and capture the scale of the matured palms across the gardens in the area also.

As I finished this painting, my grandmother who I was very close to passed away, and the painting took on a different feeling for me. With four generations of women, it began to represent martiarchy and lineage as I could see the three mature plants, and a fledgling purple palm amongst the undergrowth, as the generations of women in my family who have been together over decades, slowly growing.

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Acrylic on canvas

101cm x 76cm

In memory of Iris Florence Foerster.