Landscape painter Lucy Hersey channels her deep connection with the natural world through her art practice, painting with pigments mindfully forged from the places that first inspire a painting: the soil from a forest floor, mushrooms, plants, and more.
We chat with Lucy about her creative journey, her connection to earth, and how we can tap into a more mindful painting practice from our own homes and studios.
Where or how did your collaborative journey with nature and painting first begin? What stirred this into motion?
I have always been drawn to create, but I first began painting intentionally in 2014. At the time I was researching a lot about edible native plants and Indigenous plant medicine, and was doing some foraging and experimenting with natural dyeing, when another artist introduced me to painting with ground pigments. This was finding the final piece in the puzzle for me, and everything really took off from there. Since then I have developed my own way of painting with earth and plants, but it's always changing and I've no doubt I have so much more to learn!
Your work speaks volumes about your inner connection with the natural world. Can you tell us how your landscape paintings foster your connection with nature, and how it brings you closer to the natural landscape around you?
It's less about the paintings as finished objects, they're more moments of expression, points of punctuation in an ongoing process rather than being the final outcome. For me, my connection with the landscape is about noticing as much as I can all the time. Observing what the season is doing, changing weather, what wild food is coming into availability, keeping my eyes open for the seeds or fruit or mushrooms we forage to eat or I use for ink, looking for pigment deposits. More broadly, it is integral to my process that the works are painted with pigments collected from the places that inspired the paintings. That I can touch the landscape, and paint it into the work. I can't really say where the start or the end is, it's certainly not a linear process that starts with collecting pigments and ends with a painting. It's all meshed in and looped up together, looking, observing, feeling collecting, walking, thinking, and painting.
I don't consider myself as separate from nature, dipping in and out, but rather I like to reflect on my role as an organism and a caretaker that is part of the natural system. I try to live my life and to do my work in line with the natural rhythms that I observe around me and within me, and tune into that wisdom.- Lucy Hersey
I don't consider myself as separate from nature, dipping in and out, but rather I like to reflect on my role as an organism and a caretaker that is part of the natural system. I try to live my life and to do my work in line with the natural rhythms that I observe around me and within me, and tune into that wisdom. Working hard when it's time for productivity and growth (this really applies for my art practice, but also extends to the farm and general life), and taking rest in the slow seasons, nurturing my body and respecting it as a living thing with changing needs, not a machine that works the same way every day.
The paints you use are made from natural pigments and plant extracts which you've said you grow and forage locally! For those of us who love to paint, or want to take the step, how can we go about doing this from our own homes, gardens, and studios? Where do we start?
There's a couple of things I like to say at the start of my workshops which are this:
- Before you go out and start mindlessly digging up coloured earth/pigments I would check out your location to know who your traditional owners are, and be careful you're not in a site of Indigenous significance.
- When collecting anything from the bush, take only a little bit, especially live stuff. I always recommend trying to find windfall if you're collecting plant material, and for pigments a great way to find them is to start with earth that's already disrupted (eg. roadworks/excavations/building sites or where there have been rock falls around cliffs at the beach). Take care and use common sense. Basically as with any foraging, if you're not sure, walk away.
- There's a heap of great resources available online too which can be a great place to start, just a quick google will bring up plenty of info, but some of my favourites are @wildpigmentproject and @studiotinta_ on instagram.
How else do you seek to minimise your impact in your art practice or everyday life?
About five years ago I made a New Years resolution to buy only 100% Australian made or second hand when it comes to fashion and homewares. I don't buy much new, but when I do now I always search for a locally made option.
Since then that practice has extended to all purchases including hardware, materials for the farm, and my stretchers and frames. Being farmers, we grow quite a lot of our own food, and what I can't grow I buy from other local growers - we are lucky living where we do that there are some amazing producers all within a stone's throw so we eat really well.
We are so far from perfect - we have two diesel cars (an essential out here unfortunately), and we love streaming a movie of an evening, and being a mum I am running a washing machine, something on the stove and a dishwasher pretty much 24/7, but how we can improve is definitely something we think about all the time, especially when it comes to resource management and our environmental impact on the farm.
This year we will rehabilitate a creek that runs through our property by fencing it off from the cattle, and removing all the invasive trees and revegetating with native species. All small steps!
Lastly, if there is one thing you could say to someone who is inspired to paint with natural pigments, but afraid to take that first step, what would it be?
Don't be afraid! The worst thing that can happen is you make a mess and you learn something!
To see more of Lucy's collections and inspire your own mindful art practice, head to her website!
Interview by Sian Henderson.
Images provided by Lucy.