EXTENDED ARTIST STATEMENT
Jane
Burton Taylor
Several
years ago I was travelling in the region of Puglia, in the south of
Italy, to visit friends. I had been interested for a while in the
olive groves of the region, and how their close plantings - made
closer the older the trees were - formed a curious, combined natural
and man-made landscape, a kind of human-made forest. To me they
seemed an archetypal landscape, one with strong mythic and Christian
overtones. In the Jewish Cabbala, for example, the olive represents
the grist for the mill of life; the olive’s transformation into oil
representing the potential turning of tough life experiences into
wisdom, productiveness and a fulfilled life.
(Spatially
for me, in Australia, the equivalent space for the mood and feel of
an olive grove is the bush directly behind a sand dune. It has a
similar quietness and sense of protection that you experience when
standing deep in a long-established olive grove.)
While
visiting Puglia, my friends took me to their favourite olive grove
about an hours drive from their home. It is just outside the town of
Alessano on the Salento peninsula, the farthest point of Puglia,
itself the heel of the boot of southern Italy. The grove we visited
is estimated to have been planted 1000 years earlier and is now
officially listed as a site of cultural heritage by UNESCO. I met the
farmer who owns the grove, and it is my understanding that UNESCO now
protects the grove and its maintenance, that is: it is not allowed to
be cut down. Certainly the farmer and owner, who I met to ask his
permission to work in his grove, was very protective and proud and
delighted too, when I started to photograph it.
After
some initial time photographing here, I started to drive around the
Salento. I chose half a dozen olive groves that I felt drawn to, and
then decided to return to photograph and film them through the four
seasons. Partly to witness and experience the trees in their
different stages, including their annual pruning and harvesting, the
latter when nets are thrown on the floor of the olive grove and trees
are shaken to catch the ripe olives.
In
my art practice I am very interested in space and often, I find I am
drawn strongly to either a place or a structure, and then I will
evolve works around this place or space. This was the case with my
last photographic exhibition which explored one particular mountain
range. It also fits my most recent work, which explored the
domesticity of death and the healing power of grieving by using an
iconic Australian hills hoist; in a sense it became the structure and
the landscape for the artwork. It is also relevant in a body of work
currently in progress, which employs archetypical architectural
elements as the basis for artworks, metaphorically linking past and
contemporary civilisations and universal human drives.
I
have chosen to present the works in triptychs because it gives a
greater feel for the panorama and sense of complete absorption you
have, when you are standing in one of these groves. Also, the
triptychs are not sequential, they are made up from different
viewpoints within the same grove. I did this to give an idea of the
dreamlike
feeling
of remembering, perhaps in an idealised way, the spaces of these
groves. Often it is in memory or imagining that we picture something,
the reality is usually different of course, but the former is
arguably more essential and more potent for the way we add our own
passion and interpretation.
Its
my hope that by immersing themselves in these subjective images of
olive groves, viewers will be prompted to consider human beings
ancient connection with the land. Olive trees prosper by being pruned
and harvested, so there is a natural and productive interdependency
between these groves and human beings. In an era when the natural
world is under massive pressure from human activity, they are a
symbol for the potential rewards for humans if they act as
responsible and thoughtful stewards of the land.
Grove was exhibited at Barometer Gallery at 13 Gurner Street, Paddington, Sydney. The exhibition ran from 14th of November until the 1st of December 2013.