Plant Witnesses: Charmaine Watkiss in conversation with Lindsay Sekulowicz and Claudia Tobin
This lecture is part of the Spring Term Creative Conversations series; dialogues between artists, curators and writers. Curated by Dr Claudia Tobin, lectures are held Wednesday evenings either at the School or online.
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The history of plants is the history of humanity. Since time began, plant seeds have been carried by the air, land, water or in the pockets of our ancestors, in the hope that some of them will land in hospitable terrain. For Charmaine Watkiss and Lindsay Sekulowicz the interwoven stories of plants and people are at the core of their respective drawing practices.
Taking Charmaine Watkiss’ Plant Warriors series as a starting point, this conversation will focus on plant narratives represented in Charmaine’s work. Beginning with Jamaican lacebark, a tree that was a valuable natural resource and symbol of resilience for enslaved people of Jamaica, Lindsay, Charmaine and Claudia will discuss the roles of plants that have migrated, fed, clothed, and healed people historically.
Please note this lecture is taking place at the School only and tickets are limited.
Charmaine Watkiss completed her MA in Drawing at Wimbledon College of Art, 2018. Her work is concerned with what she calls ‘memory stories’. She creates narratives primarily through research connected to the African Caribbean diaspora, which is then mapped onto female figures. She draws herself as a conduit to relay stories that speak about a collective experience; starting with an idea, and then allowing intuition and a dialogue with the work to take over. Her practice addresses themes including, ritual, tradition, ancestry, mythology and cosmology. Since her first gallery solo show The Seed Keepers in 2021, Charmaine has investigated the herbal healing traditions of Caribbean women; especially those of her mother’s generation, and connected these traditions through colonisation back to their roots in Africa.
Lindsay Sekulowicz is an artist and practice-based PhD student at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the University of Brighton. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art, 2006 and The Royal Drawing School, 2008. She worked with biologists for over ten years, researching scientific and historical archives and conducting fieldwork in Asia, Africa and South America, before beginning a long-term residency in Kew’s Herbarium and Economic Botany Collection, which culminated in her current doctoral study, Cosmovision and Ethnobotanical artefacts of the Northwest Amazon. Previous residencies include Sultan Qaytbay Mosque, The City of the Dead (Cairo), The D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum (Dundee), Sura Medura International Arts Centre (Sri Lanka)
Dr Claudia Tobin is a writer, curator, and art historian specialising in modern and contemporary literature and visual cultures. She recently curated Gardening Bohemia: Bloomsbury Women Outdoors at the Garden Museum in London and has worked with numerous organisations on exhibitions and research projects including at Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, as well as with international commercial galleries and contemporary artists. Her recent book publications include a collection of Virginia Woolf's art writings, Oh, to be a Painter! (2021), and Modernism and Still Life: Artists, Writers, Dancers (2020). In collaboration with the Royal Drawing School, she co-edited Ways of Drawing: Artists’ Perspectives and Practices (2019). She teaches English literature and visual cultures at Cambridge University and is a Bye Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge.
First image: 'The Warriors Way: Recalling the Lost Legacies', 2022 (Momordica charantia) © Charmaine Watkiss
Second image: 'The warrior’s presence bears testament to her great resilience', 2024 (Lacebark) © Charmaine Watkiss
Cover image: Detail from 'The Warriors Way: Recalling the Lost Legacies', 2022 (Momordica charantia) © Charmaine Watkiss