Imagined Meadows

For the exhibition in April I have worked on three Imagined Meadow plots to be considered at YSP.

I have painted on top of the screen prints I produced at the end of last year, and then i've drawn flower species on top of that. It's to give the viewer the impression of a landscape that could exist at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Meadows can support a huge diversity of animal and plant life: worms and caterpillars, spiders and beetles, bees, butterflies, moths and hoverflies, dragonflies and damselflies, birds, bats, moles, shrews, rabbits and foxes*

The land at YSP has been locked into a funding structure (the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme) to restore the grazed parkland listed as 'at risk' by English Heritage. YSP is in a tricky position here - money is being given to help restore a landscape created as a pleasing vista to be looked upon by an upper class landowner - the whole reason the park exists in the first place. It was never a nature reserve with habitats suitable to sustain a diversity in flora and fauna. As with all land it's about money. It's always about the worth of the land. And in this instance 2 acres can't be excluded from the scheme and made into meadows.

So, no matter how important the meadows could be to the local populations of bees at YSP the Imagined Meadows will remain just that, imagined.

*there are lots of websites giving info about diversity in meadows, i like this one
www.countrysideinfo.co.uk