Sir John Innes Piece Key Narrative Research

For the John Innes Centre artwork I wanted to create a work inspired by the inside cover etchings from the rare books archive. These were heavily laden with symbolism, which is something I also enjoy representing in my works, so it was the perfect opportunity to do some really indepth exploration ahead of my painting.


In the sketch I had suggested several key areas, notably the butterfly, wheat stems, skull in bell jar and microscope.

The skull in the bell jar was of the extinct predatory marsupial the Thylacine. This extremely iconic beast was the largest modern world predatory marsupial, and was pushed to extinction as recently as 1930. Despite this, widepread knowledge of these unique creatures is on the whole nonexistent. They existed last in Tazmania up until the year mentioned, before becoming attributed to livestock deaths and subject to the introduction of several weighty bounties for their destruction.
I knew of this before creating the piece and always found this situation particularly poignant, as I feel many people are disconnected from the real sense of loss of an entire species as many have not witnessed a major iconic animal species extiction, and associate such things foremost with dinosaurs and tales of long ago. The Thylacine reminds us that the diverse life we share this earth with can be easily lost and entirely unique creatures can easily disappear entirely. [Example Source]

However for this piece I felt like this could have been a slightly unfocused narrative which took a step away from the work of the JIC in particular. It is also one which I have always felt strongly about, so could be involved in a more exploratory, educational piece. So in the final painting I was instead considering just having a human skull as a note to old ideas of momento mori, and also to couple with my latin phrase "Man's domain is lent not given" to invert the typical objectification of exotic creatures as specimens, and instead put the familiar human skull in it's place. To remind us that we are just as much another animal on this planet as any other. I also wanted to include several levels of interpretable concept within the work, and Momento mori in its simplest is an easy symbol to understand, thus allowing the work to be appreciated in many levels.

For the butterfly motif I wanted to find a species which was in some way embroiled in the negative affects of man, preferably in a way which somehow supported the direction of the piece. For this I used statistics from the last comprehensive conservation status survey of UK butterflies completed in 2010 as part of the NCC Species Status Assessment [Click Here for the full document] which allowed me to quickly compare different distribution trends to highlight some key species which could be interesting to explore further.

I looked first at the Black-Veined White Butterfly, last recorded in the British isles in the 1920s but found populations were prospering elsewhere in Europe. Infact one slightly worrying article was a sunny side up perspective on our warming climate, citing that populations could return to the UK if things continued. I looked briefly next at the Large Copper Butterfly, but also was starting to think an entirely extinct species, like the thylacine, could divert a little far away from the direct concerns of the JIC. With both of these species also, reintroductions had been attempted and subsequently failed, but populations still flourished elsewhere. Something which was endangered and in current need of careful preservation in current UK colonies I feel would be a more immediate thematic call to action.

Next I found the High Brown Fritillary. I had already featured the High Arctic Fritillary in my Print Sculptural piece in the first unit, and had enjoyed the intricate and iconic patterns on its wings. The High Brown Fritillary was not faring with over here in the UK either, once prevelant across all of the UK, populations have declined by 90% since the 1970s. This is thought to be down to the halting of the traditional woodland practice of coppicing, where trees are felled and  the roots left to regrow every year as a source of sustainable timber.  [Source] This is much more efficient as the trees already have developed root systems, making regrowth quicker, however it is ineffective on a commercial scale. The act of coppicing makes room for smaller plants to grow in the time between regrowths of the tree, providing food for insects and butterflies, and by extension other creatures in the ecosystem. The story in this example is again of the change from sustainable and connected practices and relationships with nature, in favour of the detatched and commercial, and the damages that can do to parts of an ecosystem. This also links to the change I tangibly felt when seeing the reconstructed 19th century botanical gardens of Heligan, so this felt like a good narrative to include.

Although the HB Fritillary is iconic from other Fritillary by large size and bright orange wings, this could be slightly more problematic to represent in monochrome. However another search of the butterfly red list revealed in fact that every other British species of Fritillary was also in some form of decline. For these factors I decided on this as the butterfly to feature on the artwork.

The top left corner of the design in the oak tree felt a little bare in my sketch, so to this area I added the Pine Marten. Some research revealed a study published in 2014 by Emma Sheehy and Colin Lawton which showed such a direct and strong correlation between Pine Marten populations and declining invasive Grey Squirrel numbers, whilst counts and sightings of Red Squirrels were at their highest for 30 years. As stated in the study; “this is the first documented evidence of a grey squirrel population retracting, without any human intervention, subsequent to having established itself as an invasive species.” Click here to read the full article, however it makes repeated relation to the lack of human involvement, and the prevelance of invasive species in a 'delpeted ecosystem' without balancing predators to restrain the prey, particularly foreign invaders who have not evolved specifically to escape. This makes several great points within my work, firstly about natures ability to make a resurgence and recovery, as well as how natural solutions can be found to manmade problems. It also paints a cheery picture for the Pine Marten too, whose populations were decimated over the 19th century (same period as JIC books) by hunting and deforestation, yet now numbers in their remaining range are stable, with relocation projects integrated in several locations in Wales, and  now intial talks of a new project in the Forest of Dean.