Organic Material

Art made with things that live or once lived, such as feathers, bark, bone, hair, plants, food, soil or bodily substances.

4 works · 10 related artists

About

Before synthetics, much art was organic by default: silk, ivory, lacquer from tree sap, shell, parchment made from skin. The works gathered here put the natural material forward rather than disguising it. Hawaiian feather cloaks, ʻahu ʻula, set thousands of small red and yellow feathers into netted fibre for chiefs. Yolŋu artists in Arnhem Land, among them Nonggirrnga Marawili, paint with earth pigments on sheets of stringybark, using fine brushes of human hair.

Modern artists often chose organic matter because it changes. Joseph Beuys worked with fat and felt, Dieter Roth let chocolate and cheese go mouldy, and Andy Goldsworthy arranges leaves, ice and stones, photographing them before they vanish. Helen Chadwick's Piss Flowers (1991–92) were cast from cavities made by urine in snow. Eduardo Kac has worked with living, genetically modified organisms. Many of these works age, rot or need renewing, and that instability is part of the point.