We all know that art can come in many forms, but the oh so au-natural form of grass is a new one that takes green to a whole new level. This year at the 2008 Wimbledon Tennis Championships, Grass Art takes center court in a new kind of art installation. UK artists, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey used grass as a photographic paper by projecting a black and white image on it while growing in a dark room.
This installation is Ackroyd and Harvey’s first commercial installation, sponsored by HSBC for the Tennis Championships. The three people featured are Tara Moore, who is competing in the qualifying tournament; Eddie Seaward, the head groundsman at Wimbledon for the last 15 years; and Lizzie May, a coach for the Wimbledon Junior Tennis Initiative. Ackroyd and Harvey’s other experimental work in the field of grass photography is also well worth a look.
Ackroyd and Harvey first discovered this technique after finishing an installation consisting of a living grass indoor wall. They had a ladder propped against the grass for some time and after removing the ladder they noticed discoloration in a ladder shape. After experimenting with different ways of enhancing this effect, they settled on a method to project a negative image onto the grass. From biology class, you’ll remember that grass needs light in order to produce chlorophyll, which makes it green. The more light it receives, the more green, while the less light it receives, the more yellow the grass is.
The picture above is the image projected onto the grass panels in order to achieve the affect of the finished picture. Typically, a grass panel needs a little over a week of exposure at 12 hours per day. Unfortunately, the images don’t last for too long without continued maintenance. Once exposed to natural light, the grass begins to grow more evenly and the images fade away.
Check this link out on Creativity-Online to be able to zoom into the picture.
Photos: Creative Review
I was fortunate to have both Harvey and Ackroyd visit my school during the spring semester. They are awesome people, with some stunning work and luckily for us they helped us make similar (though simpler) grass images.