“As an artist I am interested in the grey areas, the fringes between science and art, particularly that of fractals and mathematics within nature.”
✴ Oliver Ashworth-Martin — contemporary sculptor and draughtsman — invites us to discover his work. His works celebrate the hidden depths of nature and reflect the familiar – but also unfamiliar – structures of vegetation, mainly Australian. The striking contrasts between the organic and the inorganic reveal the materiality of the shapes and textures, as well as the underlying mathematical and geometric harmony.
Artistics is a Paris-based contemporary art gallery which operates mainly online. We are a team of passionate professionals driven by the thrill to discover new talents and to share their art with you!
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✴ Oliver Ashworth-Martin — contemporary sculptor and draughtsman — invites us to discover his work. His works celebrate the hidden depths of nature and reflect the familiar – but also unfamiliar – structures of vegetation, mainly Australian. The striking contrasts between the organic and the inorganic reveal the materiality of the shapes and textures, as well as the underlying mathematical and geometric harmony.
Artistics is a Paris-based contemporary art gallery which operates mainly online. We are a team of passionate professionals driven by the thrill to discover new talents and to share their art with you!
Want to see more from Artistics?
Never miss a new studio visit! Subscribe here: https://bit.ly/3XkpSJb
Buy unique artworks on our website: https://bit.ly/3JovXP6
To receive our bimonthly newsletter, subscribe here: https://bit.ly/3qLvZdi
Follow us on Instagram: https://bit.ly/43RAWjB
Like us on Facebook: https://bit.ly/448ROSG
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Art et designTranscription
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02 My work is always trying to reconnect others
00:11 with their natural environment.
00:13 So for me as an artist, I'm trying
00:15 to re-engage that fascination with the natural world.
00:20 I often think that when we become mindful and aware
00:23 of our surroundings, we see that what's always seemed natural
00:28 reveals how supernatural it really is.
00:31 I'm simply just trying to offer up
00:34 to a viewer another way of looking
00:36 at their natural environment.
00:38 My name's Oliver Ashworth-Martin,
00:50 and I'm an artist living and working in Melbourne, Australia.
00:53 I studied fine art sculpture at the Cardiff School of Art
00:55 and Design back in the UK.
00:57 And in 2014, I moved to Australia.
01:01 As an artist, I was completely captivated by the land here.
01:05 It's one of extreme contrast, power, and storytelling.
01:09 I particularly became interested in the tiny seed
01:13 pods, the native seed pods I'd find scattering
01:16 the landscape here.
01:17 And I started by doing a series of very large botanical
01:20 drawings.
01:22 I was speaking to the history of botanical art and science,
01:26 but I wanted to take these further.
01:28 So I augmented and abstracted these forms,
01:32 where I actually cut into these pods.
01:35 And what I was revealing was this hidden fractal geometry
01:39 that we don't often get to see.
01:42 So I was celebrating the inner workings of nature.
01:45 That's just started a sort of interest and love
01:48 affair with the land and the natural objects
01:50 that I'd find here.
01:53 A lot of my work is quite minimal.
01:56 I'm often just working with one or two materials.
01:59 And the process is often the thing
02:02 that ignites something new.
02:04 I like the honesty of working with a material
02:08 and seeing where I can take it.
02:09 It's definitely changed since being in Australia.
02:12 I'm not exclusively working with the seed pods,
02:15 but I just find I keep coming back
02:17 to their forms, their structures, which still
02:22 nearly a decade on, inspire me.
02:25 They keep taking me into the landscape.
02:27 So they're sort of vehicles for me to connect with the land.
02:31 The cycles of nature are particularly interesting to me.
02:38 And this is something I wanted to explore
02:40 in my sculptural series I call The Traces.
02:42 These were created by actually pouring concrete
02:45 onto the clustered seed pods within a mold.
02:48 Once they're set, I then take them out of the mold.
02:52 I sort of gouge into it, drill into it,
02:54 help dislodge these materials from the concrete
02:58 and burn them away.
03:00 I use a blowtorch just so I can have a bit of control
03:03 with where the heat is applied.
03:05 Often what is left are these beautiful imprints
03:10 of the forms themselves.
03:11 I then polish the concrete to really accentuate this contrast.
03:17 These were actually inspired by seeing the devastation
03:20 of bushfires here in Australia.
03:22 It's an apocalyptic sight.
03:25 But beneath all this destruction,
03:27 there is this power, this regenerative force
03:31 that I found incredible.
03:33 And it can create a whole new landscape.
03:37 The immortal series are a series of bronze casts of the seed
03:42 pods.
03:43 I again cut into these, revealing these hidden patterns
03:46 and voids, beautiful voids within the pods.
03:50 I was speaking to the history of bronze casting, which
03:54 often honors figures in historical moments.
03:58 But I wanted to use that process to immortalize
04:04 these natural objects that are so ephemeral and numerous
04:07 in the landscape and sort of elevate them
04:09 to symbolic totems of the land and sort of fractal order
04:14 hidden from us.
04:16 I often think art and science are trying to do the same thing.
04:20 They're often trying to show people
04:23 new ways of looking at the world, discover new things.
04:26 And I think if they've both succeeded,
04:29 they've taken another onto a path of wonder and amazement.
04:34 It's something I try and do as an artist,
04:37 is to discover something new, reveal something hidden,
04:41 and celebrate what is.
04:43 The two have always historically gone hand in hand
04:46 and have maybe branched away.
04:48 But I think my interest is in bringing them back together.
04:55 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:58 [MUSIC ENDS]
05:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]