Some years ago now we visited Roger Hiorn’s work Seizure in London. The Turner Prize nominated artist had turned the inside of an old council flat into a wondrous crystal grotto using copper sulphate. A deep blue crystal had broken off the work and on the floor. Isolated from the main body of crystallization, it was noticed and pocketed by an attentive and small child (Joe my son). Apparently lifeless, I started to think that the shard retained a stilled and latent energy, and that like a biological spore, it harbored a set virus-like instructions, derived from artist’s initial vision, that would lead to the birth of a new and unique art form.  At home, I nurtured the deep blue spore and carefully encouraged it to germinate  and so that it grew into its own unique,  yet related ecology. Primed by its inherent chemistry and potential, it is Hiorn’s  “Seizure”, and an unexpected  extension of it, but also it is not, having emerged into,  and representing, its own unique context.

The Blue Chemical Ecosystem appears to change constantly in response to its environment, first emerging as tall and thin spikes, but later into other wonderful and unexpected  forms. For example, it would appear that at the bottom the competition for space and “nutrition” is intense. In response, a new species has emerged, the surface dweller, which has evolved its own air bladders, allowing it to  live on the air/liquid interface and  thus toexploit this hitherto unoccupied domain.