The human race has a long history of bending nature to its will. The results of this relationship can be devastating—but they can also be strikingly beautiful, as German artist Diane Scherer skillfully proves with her low-relief sculptures made from plant roots. Scherer grows these works of art by planting oat and wheat seeds in soil, and then carefully, meticulously, warping the growth pattern. She prefers to train her roots into geometric patterns found in nature, like honeycomb structures, or foliate designs reminiscent of Middle Eastern arabesques.
But even with that botanical theme, applied to a botanical substance, Scherer’s pieces look distinctly alien—like the plant equivalent of women who’ve trained their waists with corsets, or feet with foot binding. “I think that people, they cherish nature, but on the other hand they are really quite cruel with nature,” Scherer says. “Like the gardener is telling us he loves nature, but the garden has to look like what he wants it to in his mind. He has to crop and prune and use poison.” Scherer makes no claims to a nobler process. Her artistic impulse, she says, is to control the roots in her pieces. “The roots…
