Artist Creates Living Graffiti

Working with nature as her medium and public spaces as her canvas, UK-based artist Anna Garforth uses the organic world as inspiration for her inventive public art installations. One of her most well-known projects is Grow (seen above), a series of typographic and geometric designs created with living flora. Inspired by clinging moss she observed during trips to nearby cemeteries, Garforth spent years experimenting before perfecting her technique.

While in a recent interview with DesignBoom Garforth declined to answer how these sculptures are built, we have to assume that she uses a similar method to vertical-garden artist Patrick Blanc. As part of his work, Blanc uses a system of slats or ridges on the face of a surface to keep the sculpture in place, eradicating the need for soil, and allowing the plants to be light enough to grow on any surface. Below, check out a few more images from similiar project Natur (2013):

Below we've also compiled five of our all-time favorite pieces from Anna Garforth:

King's Cross Picnic

Each year, architecture firm Squire and Partners holds a public street party during the London Festival of Architecture. In 2013, the firm commissioned this mossy tapestry as part of a large, outdoor installation.

All images courtesy of Anna Garforth 

Beta

For the Norwich Arts Festival, Garforth created a logo using bioluminescent bacteria (the kind also found in the waters outside Puerto Rico). Garforth is able to create images like the one above by inoculating the Bacteria in a petri dish beforehand, then painting through a stencil to manipulate the microbes into a form.

Big Bang

Assembled from hundreds of moss tufts collected from stone walls around Hackney, England, Big Bang was created to depict "Mother Earth as a seed-shattering explosion."

Wandering Territory

For this installation, a digital model of a bear was converted into a 3Dprinted cardboard sculpture. As seen above, polygon sides create the contours of a landscape, which the artist intended to evoke the idea of migration, the crossing of environments, and a temporary shift in the daily landscape. The sculpture formed part of the exhibition Pop - Up Culture at The Design Museum in Holland, and now resides in their permanent collection.

Anna Garforth is a multi-disciplinary designer working and living in East London. She currently works at The Plant, a branding and design agency in Old Street, but regularly takes on commissions.

Anna Garforth

via DesignBoom