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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.
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