Eli Acheson-Elmassry
Artist
The Garden Shaman - Video Performance Piece, 2020
This project started as a painting on a piece of black satin fabric done in the Springtime and based on the primroses growing in my garden, which was like a way to honour their beauty and signalling of Spring. As I was preparing for my large solo exhibition at Oriel Theatr Clwyd, 'Home and Garden by the Jellyfish Sea. I 'grew' the artwork into the tools I use for gardening, and make the painting into a cloak that 'grew' into the tools that were used, by attaching latex casts of garden spades, rakes, trowels, forks etc. Once the cloak was made and as it was exhibited I realised that I had to make a performance in it which signified the actions of gardening and dying and living and growing - in a kind of probing and expressing of these activities and changes we experience. The film revolves around the regular gardening activities of weeding, planting, pruning, raking, harvesting and composting, around which is woven a thematic expression of the mysterious and hidden activities of growth and change.
I asked Videographer and artist Michelle Wright, to film the performance and she worked closely with me to technically develop the video into its final form, creating a multi-dimensional video experience which is a visual movement poem on gardening and dying, growing and living. The result is a 20 minute long video which previewed at TAPE, Colwyn Bay, in 2020.
Those interested to show this work can contact me directly on eli_acheson@hotmail.com
Video Excerpts from The Garden Shaman
Photo: Michelle Wright.
Still images from video.
Photo: Michelle Wright.