The Green Wood

The Green Wood was exhibited at Martin Browne Fine Art, July – August 2010 and John Buckley Gallery, December 2010 – February 2011.

The Green Wood installation view, John Buckley Gallery 2010

In February 2009 a firestorm roared through the King Lake and Marysville areas of Victoria decimating the environment and killing 173 people. The aftermath revealed a scarred and blackened landscape - a witness to the catastrophic power of nature. In time, slowly the landscape began to stir and revitalize and the first hints of re-growth crept out from amongst the scorched ruins.

For Simon Strong this environment - in a state of such flux and transition - became the perfect stimulus for his ongoing fascination with the collision of the natural and man-made worlds. During Black Saturday, the uncontrollable forces of nature had overpowered the peoples of the area and the result was the annihilation of their homes, livelihood and security.

Within the newly re-awakening landscape, Strong saw an inherent tension in the symbiotic relationship between the two seemingly opposing worlds – the natural and the man-made. Strong visited the areas stricken by fire and photographed the recovering environment - these images of life and regeneration became the inspiration for his seminal title image The Green Wood.

Within this series of eight mythological tableaux’s Strong synthesises creatures with uncertain intentions. The worlds of The Green Wood appear at once both post-apocalyptic and primordial. The images seduce us to suspend disbelief and drift into an eerie narrative of foreboding landscapes fashioned from both fact and fiction.

In ancient mythologies natural forces were given human characteristics to help people identify and understand the whims of the natural world - in this sense Strong’s cowering, protecting and dominating figures personify the anguish and uncertainty of the biological environment.

The patient force of nature and its erosive power over the human world highlights the impermanence of our existence and mark on the planet. The Green Wood depicts an earth that appears both post-apocalyptic and primordial - posing questions as to whether humans are in fact regressing or whether nature is evolving in a world flourishing in beautiful tragedy.

Lucas Grogan, November 2010