Pretty, frivolous, and extravagant, the garden seems beside the point in these dangerous times. Yet it offers a chronicle of the stories, the losses, and the imperial collections of previous dangerous times. Gardens are nesting boxes of facts and fiction. These artworks convey, through simple pictures, the labyrinth of meanings implicit in apparent works of nature. The photographs were taken at the Pincio in Rome, at Villa Adriana, in Florence at the Boboli Gardens, and Il Giardino dei Semplici. The images reflect a concern with the exterior/interior space of the garden bower. The pictures evolved through the examination of garden mazes and hedge walls that create outdoor rooms. From certain points of view garden sculptures become reanimated. They act out the psychology of affection and competition. Distinctions between human and animal, man and woman, animate and inanimate, become blurred, as in the ancient myths.
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