We’re excited to be welcoming artists Julya Hajnoczky and Katrina Vera Wong to the museum for a joint exhibition which opens on Saturday 18th May!
Sometimes museum collections are all about the big picture – we house millions of specimens and conversations turn towards protecting ecosystems and entire habitats to preserve biodiversity.
It’s nice to be reminded of the beauty in the micro – and Closer promises take us inside a world that we often overlook.
Using a high-resolution scanner, Hajnoczky produces richly detailed large-scale still life photographs of natural specimens like moss, bones, feathers, and leaves, that she has gathered herself. This allows viewers an unusually close look at each organic object and provides the opportunity to slow down, mirroring the artist’s slow and meticulous study of ecosystems.
Using sections of pressed or dried plants, Wong makes flowers that bloom in dark places, and she calls them Frankenflora. After losing her father unexpectedly, she revisited a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that inspired a different perspective on her art practice. Particularly fascinated with the mutability of orchids, she continues to pursue the creation of a “strange and beautiful flower”, giving its variations binomial names.
Closer was named by you, our audience, in an online poll and we can’t wait to share it with you!