GABRIELLE KRUGER

Evoking an imagined landscape of nest-like conglomerates tangled among bare treestalks, ‘Only Ever This Nesting Place’ proposes an interconnected existence between the natural and the artificial and invites new forms of life to take root within its layered surfaces. Seemingly a naturally constructed anomaly, closer inspection reveals these forms are assembled from layers of paint fragments balancing on steel structures. 

 

Gabrielle Kruger’s art practice challenges the conventions of traditional painting. By manipulating paint as a multifaceted, malleable material she transforms the medium by her processes of layering, carving, weaving, collaging; bringing painting into the realm of sculpture and installation.

 

Finding inspiration from the natural environment and co-existing ecosystems, her work transcends the boundaries of traditional landscape painting, becoming an embodied reflection of it.  Observing the concept of an Anthropocenic Landscape, where resource use has irreversibly altered natural systems, the sculpture features organic forms crafted entirely from eight years of recycled paint off-cuts, built up with wet paint like glue. The layered paint remnants contain traces and residues of past landscape paintings, each containing its own narrative and memory; reflecting earthly strata, and the layered histories of the landscape itself. 

 

Suspended on steel stalks, these organic forms resemble fossils or nests, suggesting habitats for future life and inviting insects to inhabit them in pursuit of harmonizing fully with the environment. Kruger’s circular studio process, which reuses all material, reinforces the cyclical relationship between material, environment, and human intervention.  

 

When placed within the landscape, these forms become part of it, symbolizing the interconnectedness of ecological, material, and artificial worlds. Interested in temporal change and ideas of growth and ‘becoming’, the artist invites the elements to intervene. Over time, seasonal weather change  will influence the sculpture; exposure to rain, sun, wind, and temperature changes will gradually alter its appearance and allow the forms to shapeshift. This natural transformation of a living landscape painting emphasizes the transient nature of ecosystems and material life, reinforcing the sculpture’s ongoing dialogue with its environment and adding to an evolving mythology for our contemporary era.