The Garden of Illusion

This installation is an evocation of landscape and process. The serpentine water, constructed by Andrew Ewing has a black granite floor through which are pieced hundreds of optic fibres which light up after dusk. A disc of light is projected onto the water and is reflected on the limestone wall at the end of the garden. This picks up every minute disturbance in the wind so that the moon image shimmers gently.

The garden was originally planted with a small Japanese pruned specimen of Ilex crenata, but when this started to deteriorate due to lack of light we decided to make a facsimile of the tree by casting it in brass. This was done by Factum Arte in Madrid and installed in 2013. It has over 20,000 leaves cast from life. Now the garden has been renamed the Garden of Illusion, since everything in the garden is represents something else and nothing is as it seems at first.

View further details about the Moon Tree's construction here.