Kathy Barry | In Our Nature

In “The Order of Things”, Foucault writes that before the advent of the Linnaean system, writing about a plant included such diversities as: the resemblances that could be found in it - its possible virtues - the legends and stories in which it has been involved - and its use as food and medication. Therefore, the whole semantic network with which it was connected to the world was included: when signs were part of things themselves. Whereas, within the classical episteme, signs became modes of representation, changing the possibilities of the ways of seeing and understanding the natural world.

These drawings of indigenous NZ flowers recall the tradition of scientific illustration that stems from the Enlightenment era, and its project to impose order on the natural world through classification and documentation. In these drawings, however, plant-life is rendered in such a way as to suggest a literal hybridisation with language: the various anatomical parts of the flower are alternately rendered in black or white, suggesting an interweaving of flora with the materiality of text, or language in general. This might be considered in relation to Kristeva’s notion of the semiotic: that which is experienced as the musical, rhythmic, and material aspect of language – a potentially disruptive element to the binary nature of language. Thus, these works are set at odds with the authoritative realm of botanical illustration.

Libertia Grandifolia (detail): 815 X 3045 mm, 2000