Art Forms in Nature 43 1928

Karl Blossfeldt made this photograph, "Art Forms in Nature 43" sometime in the early 20th century. He's caught this plant mid-gesture, just a silvery, grey moment of uncurling. The photo's surface is smooth but it's not so slick you can't see the grain - it's there, a bit shadowy, like a dream. The plant's shape? I’d call it wilfully weird! Each tendril spirals out, like an invitation to some strange dance. Look at the way the light catches on the raised veins, almost like Blossfeldt is sculpting with light. I’m reminded of Odilon Redon, who turned to black and white lithography to explore the oneiric, almost hallucinatory possibilities of artmaking. And perhaps that’s the invitation here – to find the beautiful, sometimes bizarre, rhythms of the world, and to let those rhythms change the way we see.