Savanhdary Vongpoothorn

Born 1971, Laos
Bachelor of Arts, Visual Arts
Graduation show: 1992
Graduation ceremony: 1992

Artworks in Space YZ

Legs on Seeds, 1992/2020
Casuarina seeds and banksia stems
300 x 300 cm

Legs on Seeds was inspired by a valuable lesson learnt at art school: anything can be art! My teachers (Noelene Lucas, Ann Graham, Terry Hayes and Harry Barnett) emphasised learning how to look at objects with care, and thus coming to a deeper appreciation of them. With this sensibility, and the encouragement they had given us to “play around”, I set out on a bush walk one day to find some materials.

The bush in question was in Wedderburn in Western Sydney, where during my final year at art school I had occasionally worked in the studio of my friend Roy Jackson (1944 - 2013). I subsequently lived and worked there for the next eight years after my graduation. The topography of Wedderburn bushland is rocky, sandy and scrubby. As I walked through it, the Banksia and Casuarina trees stood out for me amongst other natives capable of thriving in these challenging conditions. I began to pick casuarina seed pods and the ‘wiry styles’ that protrude from the banksia flower.

Having left some casuarina pods drying in the sun, I was amazed to see the small bumps that cover the entire things open up and release hundreds of small, butterfly-like winged seeds. Excited by the idea of what seemed to me to be ‘seeds within seeds’, I was inspired to start playfully gluing the wiry styles from the banksia flowers into the cavities newly opened in the the casuarina pods. This led to a kind of metamorphosis, whereby the seed pods became bodies and the styles, legs. The hooked ends of the styles even looked like feet, giving my creation the appearance of a new kind of insect, which I affectionately call my ‘buggy’. As a student, this process was for me somehow about breaking down the barriers between self and nature, plant and animal. It was the start of an obsessive process that saw me make 1000 of these seeds on legs.

I have to admit that when I was asked to recreate this work for the Alumni exhibition, I was dreading it, but I could not bring myself to say no to the challenge. At the same time, it did not make much sense to me to just recreate something that was made 28 years ago. That is, unless I could modify it; and so modify it I did. This time, I dipped the legs into PVA glue before inserting them into the pods to give the bond strength and longevity, once the legs are all secure I once again coated the entire legs with more PVA glue. After the glue had dried, I spray painted the legs in fluorescent orange, the colour of flame and glowing embers.

In late 2019, my family and I were caught very scarily in the bushfires on the South Coast of NSW. There, like many others, we watched the glowing orange skies reflecting the fires with dread. No sooner had we recovered from this then my father passed away, in January 2020. After that, COVID-19 and lockdowns arrived. Like many others, I was helped at this time by Julia Baird's book Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark. In a kind of homage to her, I had begun using phosphorescent paint to make works that literally glow in the dark. With this amazing new material, I began to give my buggies a single, glowing “radium green” line down their backs, starting from the heads and down to the ends of the tails. Despite the PVA glue, the legs are still extremely fragile, but just strong enough to hold up the seed pods. The orange legs are there as a reminder of how fragile we are in a world where nature can suddenly go up in flames.