Knit by roots and wings
Public artwork for 9640 McCarthy Rd. Kelowna, BC
Installed in September, 2024
Images by Yuri Akuney
Knit by roots and wings
Around 450 million years ago, plants began their gradual journey out of the oceans and spread across the land. It would be another 300 million years before these early plants produced flowers and nutrient-rich pollen to invite animals to assist in their proliferation. During their long co-evolution with pollinating animals, flowering plants have developed a stunning array of tactics to encourage participation in their multi-species exchange. Los-Jones is fascinated by the ways plants use colour and pattern to invite animals (including humans) to look, investigate, and engage with them. Los-Jones’ recent works seek to honour the aesthetic contributions of flowing plants and look towards local wildflowers as examples of connection, generosity, and beauty.
These works began by documenting an abundant field of wildflowers near the artist’s home in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. Los-Jones translates the petal patterns of the blooming flowers to create the knotted form of a net, where the original photograph is visible in the threads. This work incorporates the formal language of nets and knitting to represent the simultaneous qualities of entanglement and porosity found in multi-species communities. Los-Jones finds these structures compelling for many of the same reasons contemporary eco-critic and philosopher Timothy Morton describes his interests in the term “mesh” in his 2010 book “The Ecological Thought”:
“Mesh” can mean the holes in a network and threading between them. It suggests both hardness and delicacy. It has uses in biology, mathematics, and engineering and in weaving and computing - think stockings and graphic design, metals, and fabrics. It has antecedents in mask and mass, suggesting both density and deception. By extension, “mesh” can mean a complex situation or series of events in which a person is entangled; a concatenation of constraining or restricting forces or circumstances; a snare. (Morton 28)
- Developer: PC Urban
- Art Consultant: Ballard Fine Art
- Printing: ABL Imaging
- Frame fabrication and installation: Laing Roofing