Margaret Walsh Best: Balancing Act: Invasive Alien Plants to tour Ireland
Home Town: St. John’s and Tors Cove
NLAC Program Funded Under: Professional Project Grants Program
Amount Funded: $4,200
Buttercup
Balancing Act: Invasive Alien Plants is the latest exhibition by St. John’s/Tors Cove-based painter Margaret Walsh Best. The exhibition, which has been chosen to tour two locations in Ireland this fall, features watercolours of plant species found across Newfoundland and Labrador that have “come from away”.
Venues and Dates:
- Dungarven, County Waterford: The Old Market Gallery
August 15- October 4, 2010
- Tramore: Coastguard Station Cultural Centre
October 10-November 14, 2010
Artist Contact: Margaret Walsh Best
Phone: 709 753-2643
E-mail: mmbest@nl.rogers.com
Website: www.margaretbest.com
About the Artist...
Centaurea Nigra
Margaret Walsh Best is a St. John’s/Tors Cove-based visual artist who specializes primarily in watercolour. Her work explores the detailed expressions of landscape, berries, and plants. She has participated in over 100 exhibitions and her work has been featured throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, and in Ontario with the Botanical Artists of Canada.
Her latest exhibition, Balancing Act: Invasive Alien Plants of Newfoundland and Labrador has been chosen to tour two locations in Ireland this fall: County Waterford at The Old Market Gallery in Dungarven and at the Coastguard Station Cultural Centre in Tramore.
Balancing Act: Invasive Alien Plants of Newfoundland and Labrador is an exhibition featuring watercolour paintings of plant species across Newfoundland and Labrador that have “come from away”. These immigrant plants have entered our ecosystems and have altered its balance. The artist has created this work to highlight the importance of this balance in the environment and our impact on that equilibrium. The content of the project is based on a variety of immigrant plants identified as “invasive aliens” by extensive research at Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden.
Q and A with Margaret Walsh Best...
NLAC: What was it about invasive plants that appealed to you as the subject for a series of paintings?
Margaret Walsh Best
MWB: While I enjoy painting many subjects, if you know me at all, you know that my favourite subject is plants. I love them all, from the showy formal garden blooms, to the miniscule blossom on the forest floor. Several years ago I became attracted to the wild and invasive crazy plants that take over our roadsides and ditches and are classified as 'weeds' by most. When I looked at them ‘up close and personal’ I realized that they were, in fact, very beautiful.
While I have been drawing and photographing and painting these plants, I have developed an attachment that has created a bit of a “love-hate” relationship. While I recognize the harm that they can do to our native plants, I am attracted to their resilience, their strength, and their determination to exist. I am inclined to think of them as "rogues"; in my mind this is synonymous with sleveens and vagabonds.
NLAC: A central component of this project was the collaboration of visual art and science. How did the scientific research inspire and inform your art work? Do you feel these paintings are different from your previous work, if so, how?
MWB: Looking back over my past exhibitions I realize that science and history have informed my work for quite some time. My last exhibition From an Island to an Island had as its subject the coastal landscapes of the Southern Shore, which is where I am from. This exhibition was a collaboration with Irish artist Andrea Jameson. Her landscapes were of the coastlines of southeastern Ireland. History was a major theme of this exhibition. About 75% of Irish migration was to the Avalon region and many of the people on the Southern Shore have roots in County Waterford, Wexford, and Kilkenny. The shared history and culture was the bond in this exhibition. Previous to that I did an exhibition of the plants at the Colony of Avalon Archaeological site in Ferryland. The Medicinal Garden and the Gentlemen’s Garden gave much subject matter for the collection of 30 watercolours in the exhibition. Again history and science were the starting points.
The extensive research carried out by Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden on the invasive alien plants of this province was an important element in the creation and presentation of this project. I think that the juxtaposition of watercolour painting, science and history, coupled with the inherent themes, create a pensive exhibition.
NLAC: What is the essential theme of this exhibition?
Fallopia Japonica
MWB: Biodiversity is the theme. Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth. I called the exhibition “Balancing Act” since the discussion that I want to encourage with these paintings is on how to safeguard the various elements in our environment which all contribute to our health and well-being.
My overarching theme in this work is much broader than plants; it is to engage the viewer in a way that examines how we live, invade, and champion our own land/space. This project examines, through research and visual representation, how a small plant can alter an ecosystem forever. This is brought to the foreground and confronts the viewer as a participant in the alteration of our ecosystems with every step we take. The painting of each plant is intended to initiate discussion and to educate. I will be doing a presentation on the topic, and my work, while in Ireland.
2010 is proclaimed the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations General Assembly, so it is very fitting that the exhibition will start its tour during this pivotal year.
NLAC: How did this opportunity (to take this exhibition to Ireland) come about?
MWB: In 2006, I participated as a representative in the “Festival of the Sea” in Southeast Ireland. The aim was to investigate potential collaborations with Irish artists, art associations, and gallery curators. This initial investment helped create opportunities which have since come to fruition: the 2008 exhibition From an Island to an Island (mentioned earlier) with Irish artist Andrea Jameson at Five Island Gallery in Tors Cove. Also a workshop involving twelve local artists traveling to Ireland to workshop with Andrea Jameson and me, and then touring Ireland, which culminates in 2010 with the current project, Balancing Act: Invasive Alien Plants of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Iimmigrants Yellow Flag Irises
I made contact with the galleries in Ireland during my visit in 2006. I brought promotional material and they expressed an interest in my work. In 2009 I received an invitation to exhibit at The Old Market Gallery in Dungarven. Shortly following that I was approached about touring the exhibition to Tramore.
I feel a strong connection and commitment to the cultural development of the Southern Shore of Newfoundland. This project will only encourage additional cultural partnerships with Ireland, thereby strengthening and building on that pre-existing relationship. In 2011 a workshop on the Southern Shore will see 12 Irish artists visit the Ferryland to Capphayden area to paint, enjoy their surroundings, and share cultures.
NLAC: Will you be going to Ireland? If so, what will your trip involve?
MWB: Happily I will. That is with many thanks to the NLAC and the Ireland Business Partnership. I will be in Ireland from September 4th to the 22nd, starting in Northern Ireland and then down to Waterford. I have partnered with two Irish horticulturists, John Walsh and John Kelly, in researching future expansion for this project. My plan is to do preliminary work to represent an invasive alien plant of the north and southeast of Ireland which will be included in the next mounting of this exhibition.
NLAC: What does this type of international exposure mean for you as an artist?
MWB: It is my intention to pursue touring this exhibition further. Positive feedback abroad has highlighted its export potential. I am interested in representing Newfoundland and Labrador in an artistic capacity regionally, nationally and internationally following this exhibition in Ireland. The goal is to broaden the exhibition to include an invasive alien plant of Ireland and Northern Ireland during the September visit, and in 2011 to expand the work to include representative plants from various parts of Canada. The impact of invasive alien plants is global; the future plan for this exhibition is to explore and present internationally.
NLAC: Is there anything you would like to add?
MWB: I have said little of the painting process. It is obvious that I love the science and history associated with this project but their purpose is to inform the work. My representations of these specific plants of Newfoundland and Labrador are not only a celebration of the natural world, but also a demonstration of the subtle power of the watercolour medium. My interest in this subject stems from the variation and complexity of the subjects. The sheer range of colour, and the intricacy of form that is found in a single blossom, demand an observational rigor and an attention to detail that is part science and part art. While presenting pieces that are aesthetically pleasing, my focus is also on scientific accuracy. Striving to achieve a proper balance between these two elements brings a challenging and exciting dimension to my work.
Stylistically, I am concerned with capturing the character of these species, in all their resilience, strength, and determination to exist. My aim is to skillfully represent the plant that is beyond botanical art. My attention to detail of the plant is incredibly important so I have chosen to approach the background areas in a more impressionistic manner with the intention of keeping the plant the focus. I see this work as plant portraits, fine detail in the blossom, with very loose, impressionistic, wet-in-wet backgrounds.
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