A Tangled Thicket

Z·inc Artist Collective (Willa Downing, Lesley Garratt, Cora Li-Leger, and Claire Moore) are united by a profound passion for community, craft, natural materials, and ecological consciousness. A long-standing presence in Surrey art communities, the group has supported collaborative artmaking initiatives with an extended network of creatives and the public at large for over a decade.

A Tangled Thicket captures the ethos of connectivity that lies at the heart of Z·inc’s practice. Drawing on theories of ecology, neuroscience, and ontology (the study of being itself), each artist expounds on the interconnection between nature and the human mind and how they are embedded within and shaped by each other.

Across painting, drawing, sculpture, textile, and handmade installations, each artist alludes to the porousness of the supposed boundaries that separate humans from other species, as well as the stories we tell ourselves about “nature” and our relationship with it. Citing inspirations such as the neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, ecologist Suzanne Simard, and local poet and author Aislinn Hunter, Z·inc’s works vividly capture the resonance across all forms of matter: from the biochemical schemata of plant cells and brain neurons to the mycorrhizal networks of fungi, trees, animals, people, places, families, and memories.

Z·inc constantly strives to push beyond the boundaries of their own practices, inviting responses in the form of interactive installations. The collaborative Objects for Pondering project encourages visitors to handle bespoke, handmade items—books, miniature figurines, ceramic sculptures, memorabilia—that prompt personal reflection and meaning-making. Made for the occasion of Surrey Art Gallery’s 50th anniversary, the Cultured:50 project includes 50 petri dishes filled with objects co-created by other artists south of the Fraser.

Elsewhere, the exhibition includes artworks that celebrate the inherent craftsmanship of each artist’s approach, emphasizing organic materials, bodily sensation, and improvisation. Interactive sculptures by Claire Cilliers and ink paintings by Lesley Garratt imagine vibrant worlds of anthropomorphic creatures that move between realms, untethered by human categories, while artist books by Cora Li-Leger and large-scale installations by Willa Downing draw attention to the synergy between consciousness and history.

In the face of ever greater automization and social stratification, Z·inc proposes a radical creative togetherness imagined through the lives of artworks and the people who make, use, and respond to them. 

Curator: Rhys Edwards
Origin of Exhibition: Surrey Art Gallery

Join Z·inc for the spring opening "Enter the Connectome" art party on April 26, an artist talk on May 8, and a tour and poetry reading on June 7.