foreword

by John Brodie Donald

"Whenever you look at a tree you should think about two things. The first is that what you see above the earth is mirrored underneath. The size of the branches above are the same as the size of the roots buried in the ground. What is visible depends upon something of equal size that is invisible.

The second thing that you should think is that the structure of the branches is exactly the same as the structure of your lungs. The tree trunk gradually splits and diminishes into boughs and branches ending in the extremity of the tiny twigs. That is what your lungs look like; the trunk being your windpipe and the twigs being the alveoli. If you were to use your lungs as a cast and fill them full of plastic resin, you would end up with a sculpture that looked like a tree. 

Of course, trees and lungs are mirror images of each other: one solid, the other hollow. One is defined by presence, the other by absence. Also, trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Lungs do the exact opposite. Trees and lungs are the epitome of living and breathing. The ying and yang of an ecosystem in balance, each reliant on its other mirrored twin. 

And so to Piluca. You can tell from the earth colours in her favourite palette that what you see in her art is nourished by hidden roots that tap into a history of hope and old pain. Just like a tree, the visible expression of her artistic impulse is fed by sap that springs from a buried and secret place. 

Deeply rooted in her local community of Brixton, her art breathes as trees or lungs do. The same spirit feeds through to her ecological activism, in her recycled trash figures, her painted hub caps and the Bee Conscious movement that she co-founded.  

So there is actually a third thing you should think of when you next look at a tree. It is summed up in one word: Piluca"

John Brodie Donald, author of Catataxis and Bolt from the Blue