Our nature printing exhibition has travelled east!
Co-curated with Matthew Zucker and the Singapore National Parks Board, Capturing Nature is an exhibition of rare nature printed works from Europe, India, Japan, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, dating from 1748 to the present. Pre-dominantly showcasing works from the Zucker Collection, the exhibition at the Botanical Art Gallery is based on our recent book Capturing Nature and highlights various nature printing methods and their development. Featuring impressions made from leaves, flowering plants, seaweed and ferns, highlights from the exhibition include a giant Akita-Fuki print from Japan and rare original printing plates from Vienna dating to the 1850s. On display are also three of my lead- and copperplates made according to the previously lost Austrian Naturselbstdruck method.
The opening weekend 28 September to 1 October, 2023, included talks, tours and nature printing workshops.
This giant Akita-fuki (butterbur) leaf was most likely printed using the plant’s own sap. The poem on the scroll was written by Okubo Shifutsu (大窪詩仏), a famous poet and calligrapher of the late Edo period (1603–1868), and the subject is the Japanese butterbur itself. In the poem, Okubo compares the size of the plant’s leaf to an umbrella, and its stem to a pillar.
Three of my plates made according to the original 19th century Naturselbstdruck method invented in Vienna.
The Botanical Art Gallery, Gallop extension, Singapore Botanic Gardens
