As a visual artist, Anne Geene (NL, 1983) captures the hidden beauty of plants and animals. This work will be for the first time presented at Ballroom Project #3 in May 2021.
‘Portrait of a garden’ is a site-specific work, created during an artist-in-residency in Portugal this year. The artistic method of this work lies on the border between scientific and poetic investigation, addressing the idea of objectivity. By photographing compositions assembled from the real plants, Geene is looking for visual similarities, patterns and phenomena in the natural world.
To make such works, the artists engages in the enduring on-site collecting processes, selecting materials for the project. Eventually, her findings are analysed and cataloged according to a distinct logic. ‘O Amor’ is a result of the two months’ accumulation, scanning and sorting of the leaves to find those with a heart shape. ‘Portrait of a garden’ consists of plant material collected in a single garden. Both of these works are bridged by a larger project ‘Museum of the Plant’ - a slightly absurd, or even ironic, "museum" that focuses on all aspects of the plants that other museums do not discuss. Anne Geene investigates such notions as coincidence, hierarchy, destiny, social status, ownership, the norm and deviation from it. Does application of the human logic and standards to the plant life benefit to a better understanding of the natural world? Or bring us closer to objectivity?
Geene’s interpretation of the collected data is self-evident within her compositions. As opposed to the museum’s neutrality, her interpretation is strictly personal and refers to human urge to regulate and understand the world around us. ‘O Amor’ and ‘Portrait of a garden’ are artistic puzzles that try to organise a chaos of reality.