ORNAMENTAL HERMITS (2020)

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‘Ornamental hermits’ or ‘garden hermits’, employed by 18th-century English aristocracy as living ornaments for their private gardens, were part of a widespread eccentric fashion in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. These hermits were hired to live in purpose-built hermitages and were displayed to guests as attractions, alongside temples, fountains, and sweeping vistas.

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Inspired by this historical phenomenon, I began portraying people in public and private gardens and parks across London, each carrying a lantern— one of ornamental hermits symbols, traditionally associated with the human quest for knowledge. Drawing from the Romantic landscape painting tradition, these images transform the cultivated, anthropic nature of the garden into an overwhelming, sublime landscape—simultaneously a source of pleasure and unease. This tension is intended to reflect our current position within the ecosystem.

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As Gilles Clément writes in Garden, Landscapes and Nature’s Genius, “In the 20th century, the garden comes out of its fences and denies its separateness. Ecology is born and with it, paradoxically, another form of enclosure—the awareness of the planet’s limitedness.” Similarly, in The Garden of Man, Jorn de Précy proposes the idea of the wild garden, suggesting that humanity should not see itself as the Earth’s owner, but rather as its guardian.

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Based on these ideas, the ‘hermits’ in this series are portrayed as silent ornaments of nature. They embody both our longing for reconciliation with the natural world and our sense of disorientation in the face of ecological crisis—an unease rooted in our inability to foresee what lies ahead.