A large piece of fabric, dyed using the batik process, forms Daniel Le Dain’s exploration of ideas around connections between ecology and power.

Process and material – and their connotations and implications -are at the heart of Le Dain’s work, connecting myriad strands of image and idea – here the batik dye flattens images of nature – wildflowers, beetles, frogs – into the same visual plane as images of fruit as commodities. A fabric transfer process brings in images of various manmade objects recorded in cyanotype, and artificial sequins represent the synthetic in clusters associated with collections of flowers more abstract ideas of what a system is, while the overall dazzling colour palette is reminiscent of advertising imagery and expands on themes of human’s exploitation of natural resources and the connection between nature and human systems.

For Le Dain,

“my work is an act of investigating, of questioning the world around me though a highly material practice. I am currently investigating ecology and the dynamics of power, at interactions and relations involved in determining how the world around us operates.”

Le Dain was born in Barnsley and moved to Jersey at the age of three.

“The influence of living in a nature rich area and that of my father who gardens for a living lead to my interest in nature and the natural environment. My South Yorkshire roots have informed my political ideas especially the effects of economic powers on the individual. I have brought these ideas together through my work”.