Design in Nature
Lying on your back in the woods and looking up at the trees is one of those simple pleasures in life that age will never dent. It takes you into another world, a child-like place of imagination and wonder. Jo Minoprio’s latest works photograph the world from this perspective, creating map-like images that seem to breathe before your eyes. Looking upwards at the heavens, removed from any trace of humanity, a different type of world appears, that’s limitless, beautiful and complex, a jolt of the ‘real’ in our nature starved lives.
By photographing the trees from this angle, Minoprio creates a type of abstraction; we observe the branches like a system of arteries and the sky seen between them becomes more positive - a path through the network of branches. The idea of Biophilia suggests that humans innately seek connections with nature and this notion seeps through the images.
Minoprio lives in Exmoor with her studio high up on the moor. It’s easy to see the influence of one Britain’s last pieces of wilderness on her work and why she strives for a greater balance and engagement with the natural world.
“The story of my Tree Top series began on Exmoor, while lying in the middle of a tree circle made up of 160 year old Beech trees planted on a 6 foot high circular stone faced bank, exposed to the elements, high up on the moor with not another tree in sight”
The Space Between, 63 x 63 cm Photograph, Edition of 10
Minoprio’s work is centred around the concept of ‘Design in Nature’, looking at what we can learn from the design and form of the nature around us, and how it can lead us to live better lives. In these tree top images, we see the harmony between the trees, creating space between themselves, a utilitarian society of sorts that allows others a room to live and breathe.
Seen from this angle, the trees become removed from any symbolic or sentimental meaning, and they become lighter, almost growing before our eyes. They become a reminder that there is a whole system that we are barely even aware of, carrying on and enduring as we frizzle away our lives on mundane matters.
Exhibition, Naturing a Thought, featuring workings by Jo Minoprio can be viewed here →