AFTERGLOW / Aftergrowth (2019), Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett. Roofing nails, prismatic offcuts, dead tree. Variable scale. Commissioned by The Drake Devonshire, Wellington, Ontario, Canada.
While we were working on Delta Garden + The City Unseen last year, we had the pleasure of visiting Calgary’s municipal sign shop. We were gifted some prismatic offcuts – the material used to make street signs reflect headlights.
AFTERGLOW / Aftergrowth uses 5000 hand-punched reflective offcuts from a municipal street sign shop to ornament the dead stump in the parking lot of The Drake Devonshire in a luminous shroud for the afterlife.
Dotted lines trace the contours of the bark, illuminating the stretch marks of the tree as it grew. During the day, the artwork appears like a delicate infestation, almost bedazzled in the sunlight.
At night, the piece glows for car headlights, flashlights, or photographs, capturing the aura of the maple trunk while it radiantly rots.
Drawing a relationship between the offcuts of cities and the offcuts of nature, AFTERGLOW / Aftergrowth is a (de)composition of decadent decay.
Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett 