While most bring plant-based practices into their diet, urban land artist Anna Garforth brings it into her art.
Based in the UK, Garforth creates installations that take a green approach to street art by using living moss to make typographic signs and detailed images. This approach is known as moss graffiti, an art form that replaces the traditional practice of using paint that puts harmful chemicals into the environment with a practice that uses organic plant matter. As a branch of guerilla gardening, many of Garforths installations advocate for environmental sustainability and urban ecology.
Her 2012 exhibition piece titled “The Big Bang” was a representation of Mother Earth as a seed shattering explosion. Celebrating International Women’s Day, the exhibition showcased the work of female artists. Garforth’s Moss art was put together with hundreds of moss tufts collected from stone walls in Hackney, London. As a collection of compelling textures and different shades of green, the piece is a reminder of mother natures beauty and fragility.
With moss creations for window displays, galleries, campaigns, and events, Garforth shows how the natural world can coexist with the man-made world in new and innovative ways. She diversifies the world of plant-based art by experimenting with other natural materials such as dried florals and wild oats. In 2018, Garforth designed a floral tapestry made with hundreds of wild oats, grasses, thistles and florals. The installation, titled “Meadow”, was exhibited in the Pullman Hotel in London to celebrate the onset of Spring. Garforth continues her craft through Floe, doing client work all around the world, making urban environments a little greener and everyday spaces a little brighter.
