Mother Earth Will Survive (Your Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants)

Collaborations, Don Leicht, Exhibitions, Paintings, Public Art, Stencils, Street Art

Your Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants

John Fekner and Don Leicht were invited to participate in the outdoor street exhibition Welling Court Mural Project organized by Ad Hoc Art in Queens, NY. After a preliminary visit to the site, they decided to paint on a wall directly facing the Two Coves Community Garden and the NYCHA Astoria Houses Development.  The location of their collaborative site-specific work was important for two reasons: not only did it connect with the communities’ thriving volunteer-run urban garden; it also provided a platform to address the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Using a limited color palette of green and white on a black background, the mural was painted using hand rollers and brushes instead of aerosol paint. The project is a visual remix of the 1979 album cover of Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants designed by Margo Nahas. Fekner and Leicht’s interpretation focuses on nature’s steadfast determination to adapt and survive; whether it’s growing through a crack of city concrete or the local communities’ own personal effort in revitalizing an abandoned lot into a sustainable and thriving garden.

On a stark black field, the simple hand rendered skeletal-like plant life surrounds the stenciled high tech font/text, Your Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants. By modifying the sentence to read Your Journey… Fekner and Leicht encourage the viewer to follow their own path of exploration into the science and mystery of nature.

The Mother Earth Will Survive project is an affirmation of hope and strength that Mother Nature will prevail whether it is a single plant species on a city street or an entire ecosystem threatened by man’s destructive ways.

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