When Nature Becomes Art (10 Photos vol. 5)

A little help from nature

Hannah Bullen-Ryner built this hedgehog by hand from bits of nature, then left it on the autumn ground. In these ten works, nature supplies the material, the setting or the finishing touch.

More: When Street Art Meets Nature (40 Photos)

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🌳 “UMI” — By Daniel Popper, photographed in Lisle, Illinois, USA 🇺🇸

Root-like forms rise into a woman’s face and folded hands, leaving a passage visitors can walk through. This photograph shows UMI at the Morton Arboretum during Daniel Popper’s Human+Nature exhibition. The sculpture is now permanently installed at the Aurora Highlands in Colorado.

💡 Nerd Fact: That woody look comes from steel and glass-fiber-reinforced concrete.

More: Daniel Popper Builds Giants You Can Walk Through (32 Photos)

🔗 Visit Daniel Popper’s website

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🦔 “Little Autumn Hedgehog” — By Hannah Bullen-Ryner

A dark nose and glossy eye emerge from a fan of pale, pointed fragments. Hannah Bullen-Ryner’s little hedgehog sits among fallen leaves, its spines made from the same kinds of small natural pieces that surround it.

💡 Artist Fact: Bullen-Ryner uses no glue or permanent fixings in her ephemeral land art. She holds lighter materials in place with heavier ones, photographs the result, and leaves it to the elements.

More: Hannah Bullen-Ryner Made These From Nature (18 Photos)

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🌀 “Fossil” — By Jon Foreman at Lindsway Bay, Wales, UK 🇬🇧

An ammonite-like spiral fills the beach beneath the cliffs. The branching lines grow denser toward the center, while the small figure near the far edge shows just how much sand Jon Foreman has turned into Fossil.

More: Clever Land Art by Jon Foreman (8 Photos)

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🌱 Fran’s Summer Hairstyle — By David Zinn in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA 🇺🇸

Fran smiles and waves one small hand from the sidewalk in her purple shirt. Zinn drew her just below a grassy crack, and his own caption calls the result a summertime hairstyle that is “100% natural with very healthy roots.”

More: David Zinn Made Us Smile Again (12 Photos)

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🌾 “Japonism Revived in the Rice Fields” — In Gyoda, Saitama, Japan 🇯🇵

Hokusai’s Great Wave, Mount Fuji and the kabuki hero Umeōmaru are all made of growing rice. Gyoda City called its 2021 design Japonism Revived in the Rice Fields: Ukiyo-e and Kabuki. Volunteers planted the picture in June, and its colors change as the rice ripens.

💡 Nerd Fact: The picture is stretched on purpose. Gyoda’s city newsletter says it is drawn in perspective for the 50-meter observation deck at Ancient Lotus Hall and looks distorted from directly above. Four rice varieties supply the green, black, red and white.

More: The Japanese City Gyoda Transforms Agricultural Land Into Works of Art

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🥢 “Nu(tree)tion” — By Sath in Penang, Malaysia 🇲🇾

A painted hand lifts a pair of yellow chopsticks toward a real tree above the wall, turning the overhanging greenery into a very large mouthful. Sath, the Mallorca-born artist Sandro Thomàs, made Nu(tree)tion in Penang in 2015, and his website lists it among a series of pun-titled pieces from the island.

More: By Sath in Mallorca and Penang

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🐚 “Mother and Baby in Conch” — By Debra Bernier of Vancouver Island, Canada 🇨🇦

A mother curls around her baby inside the opening of a conch shell. In Debra Bernier’s Mother and Baby in Conch, the figures follow the curve of the shell’s warm pink interior.

More: 19 Driftwood Sculptures by Debra Bernier, Using Natural Materials Such as Driftwood, Clay and Shells

🔗 Follow Debra Bernier on Instagram

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🌲 “Spire” — By Andy Goldsworthy in the Presidio, San Francisco, USA 🇺🇸

Dark cypress trunks lean together into one long point above the grove. Goldsworthy made the roughly 90-foot Spire in 2008 from 30 to 40 cypress trees that the Presidio forestry crew had saved while replanting the grove.

💡 Forest Fact: The young trees planted around Spire are meant to grow up and slowly hide it. The Presidio’s forester expected them to reach the sculpture’s height in about 20 years.

📷 Photo: Daderot / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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🪵 “The Big Easy” — By Patrick Dougherty at Duke Gardens, Durham, North Carolina, USA 🇺🇸

From below, the woven shapes look like a group of giants with stick hairdos. Patrick Dougherty’s The Big Easy went up in February 2017, made from locally harvested saplings. He spent three weeks on it with Duke Gardens staff, volunteers and a few local fans.

💡 Artist Fact: Dougherty told visiting Duke art students that he discovers the shape while building it: “You really do not know what the material can do.”

📷 Photo: Bigmacthealmanac / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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