Lauren Nurse
Natural Order Series (2011)
Installed in storefront windows at 81 Walton Street, Port Hope: August-October, 2013
C-print on Hanemuhle paper
Lauren Nurse is an artist and urban gardener/rural farmer who divides her time between Toronto and the farming community of Stirling, Ontario. In her artistic practice, she explores our often uneasy relationship with nature. As humans, we indulge in a certain type of bargaining with the natural world, revealing a naive (but sincere) belief that we can exert power over forces which are in fact beyond our control.
Nurse’s Natural Order Series, Parts 1-3 is a triptych of stunning self-portraits, in which the supernatural amplifies the natural. By presenting herself in various human/wild hybrid guises, we are invited to consider the savage beauty of nature, and the natural savagery of civilization.