HANGING GARDENS
Hop Gallery, Tallinn
November 6 - 24, 2020
At the exhibition "Hanging gardens" Ülle Saatmäe displays botanical printed silk fabrics and photographs.
Saatmäe has developed a proprietary technique, where the result shows the hidden diversity of plant pigments. It's the direct contact of the plants with the fabric that brings out their fragile inner beauty.
In the description of the exhibition, Ülle Saatmäe states:
Everything that has ever started, will end some day. The Hanging Garderns of Babylon are considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World listed by Hellenic culture. According to the legend, the gardens were constructed by the King Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife Queen Amytis because she had missed the landscape of her birthplace. Plenty of water and physical effort was put into the construction process. Even if it the sight might have been something extremely glorious and amazing, the phenomenon was certainly not a miracle. Instead, a miracle lies in a garden that still lasts on this planet with us. Half a billion years ago plants started to strive on Earth, human beings emerged much later. We breathe the air where oxygen as an essential component is created by photosynthesis. Plants are able to derive the important component for life from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. The status of the whole ecosystem depends entirely on this mysterious process. Chlorophyll and other plant pigments take part in
photosynthesis. The greenness of vital plants is a green wavelength that does not absorb in chlorophyll but reflecting back to the depths of our eyes. This has a comforting effect – giving a signal that more oxygen is on its way and everything is fine. I have caught the hidden diversity of plant pigments on my textile pieces. I normally use some dye fixative while using plants in the working process, all the rest has arisen from the direct contact between plants and material in a hot environment. This is my personal photosynthesis where instead of new substances new flows of ideas emerge. In my photographs I document and study the cycle of life and the mysterious beauty of plants. Where will the gardens hang when we finally reach to the further end of Milky Way?