Stephen Bird | Up the Garden Path: Works from the Garden Shed OLSEN GALLERY, 30 April - 24 May
Painting, pottery, and gardening share many physical and poetic analogies. They are deeply rooted in ancient alchemy and the knowledge of metallurgy—not just in the metaphorical sense of turning base materials into gold but in the literal understanding of metal decomposition and the use of oxides, carbonates, and salts to create colours, glazes, and patinas.
There is great humility and philosophical grounding in cultivating a garden. For a garden to thrive, the soil must maintain a delicate balance of elements, ensuring that the food it yields is rich in the nutrients essential to our survival. While we may not be able to change the world, we can act as custodians of the land, leaving a small piece of the earth more fertile, bountiful, and diverse than when we found it. The analogy between gardening and the materiality of painting is profound — gardening has fundamentally influenced the way I think and create art. - Stephen Bird
Up the Garden Path marks Bird’s fourth solo exhibition at Olsen Gallery, bringing together a series of paintings, sculptures, and painted ceramic plates. The works explore the metaphor of the "mind garden," a poetic and literary concept where the garden represents the thoughts and experiences shaping one’s consciousness and perception of the world. This metaphor suggests a place of both beauty and complexity, reflecting the diverse and sometimes contradictory nature of human thought. Bird examines themes of self-deception, illusion, and the evolving nature of memory and perception. His mind garden features winding paths—some leading to clarity and enlightenment, others to confusion and illusion.
The concept of gardens as ideological constructs remains a point of contention among historians. Some scholars interpret gardens as cultural constructs requiring broader sociological and political analysis, while others see them as neutral spaces, free from political or professional agendas. The romanticised notion of the garden as a place of rustic innocence and quiet pleasure persists, yet in reality, the natural world is one of both growth and decay—a microcosm of the bustling outside world.
Bird’s fascination with artist’s gardens most likely has its roots in Ian Hamilton Finley’s garden, Little Sparta, which he visited when at Art College in Scotland. Set in the Pentland Hills, near Edinburgh, Little Sparta is Ian Hamilton Finlay’s greatest work of art and contains many of his signature concrete poems and temples. In 2002 Bird travelled to The Rock Garden of Chandigarh near New Delhi — A vast complex of sculptures and paths built in secret in the jungle almost single handedly by Nek Chand. Bird had exhibited alongside Chand in the exhibition, Obsessive Visions. Art Outside The Mainstream, at England & Co Gallery, London in 2001. More recently In 2023 Bird travelled to Kent in the UK to visit Sissinghurst Castle Garden and also Charston House in Sussex, the garden home and studio of the Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
Stephen Bird
The hunter returns home charmed by the flute but distracted by a gargoyle, 2024 oil on canvas
122 x 214 cm
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, 2023 oil on wood, with ceramic and concrete on tiled plinth
Stephen Bird
