We are in the midst of a huge wave of animal and plant extinctions, caused mostly by ourselves. To preserve plant species until such time as they might be grown again, seed banks around the world collect the seeds of every plant they can get their hands on. Since 2008, UNT professor and Houston native Dornith Doherty has traveled to places like Australia, Norway, and Brazil to visit these seed banks and photograph both the seeds themselves and the facilities keeping them safe. You can see her work at the Amon Carter Museum’s new exhibit, Dornith Doherty: Archiving Eden.
While there is an urgent environmental message behind this show, Doherty does not forget to take time to regard these plant life forms as objects of aesthetic beauty. The artist uses X-ray images of the seeds to create beautiful canvases, from the rigidly geometric structures of spiral grass to the seemingly random proliferation of seeds on the branches of a golden wattle tree. The photographs at the Carter are a chance to not only appreciate all that Doherty has brought back to North Texas from her travels, but also appreciate the endless forms that nature has seen fit to bless us with, and hope that we might one day see them all again.
Dornith Doherty: Archiving Eden runs Sat thru Jan 14 at Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 3501 Camp Bowie Blvd, FW. Admission is free. Call 817-738-1933.
