One plant holding another
cleidi hearn
Linen is often treated as a neutral ground, a surface expected to disappear behind the image it carries. Yet no surface is neutral. Every material brings its own history, behaviour, and limits. Linen is not an empty support. It is matter with memory.
Before it becomes cloth, linen begins as flax. It is grown, harvested, retted, combed, spun, and woven. By the time it reaches the studio, it has already passed through seasons, weather, and many forms of labour. It carries the trace of soil and handling. The fabric is not abstract. It is vegetal.
This origin matters when working with plants. The encounter is no longer between subject and blank surface, but between one plant and the transformed fibres of another. Pigment enters a material that once lived as a stem. The relationship is continuous rather than oppositional. The image does not sit on top of an inert plane; it settles into a body that has its own organic history.
Absorption defines this process. Linen is porous. Colour sinks into the weave rather than resting on the surface. The image becomes embedded within the fibres. It does not float or detach. What appears is inseparable from the cloth that holds it.
This behaviour changes how time registers. Each layer of pigment leaves a trace of contact: where the fibre accepted, where it resisted, where the mark spread or thinned. Hesitations remain visible. Repetition accumulates. The surface records the pace of making. Linen does not simply receive an image; it stores the duration of its formation.
Textile also introduces movement. A length of linen hangs, folds, and responds to air. It never hardens into a fixed plane. Its edges shift slightly. Its weight is felt. Even at rest, it suggests the possibility of touch. The viewer recognises it as something that could be handled, carried, or worn. Seeing becomes subtly tactile.
This tactility places linen closer to the body than to the wall. It belongs to everyday life: clothing, bedding, domestic space. Rather than diminishing the work, this proximity reinforces its scale and intimacy. The plant is not monumentalised or sealed behind glass. It appears on a material associated with contact and care. The encounter becomes quiet and close rather than distant or theatrical.
Choosing linen is therefore not a stylistic preference. It is a structural decision. A plant-derived material hosts attention to other plants. Fibres that once belonged to flax hold the trace of another species. Different vegetal lives meet within the same surface.
Under these conditions, the image cannot be separated from its support. Pigment, fibre, and form develop together. What is seen is not an illustration placed onto cloth, but a process that unfolds within it.
To think of linen as a botanical medium is to recognise that the act of looking is already entangled with matter. The plant is not isolated against an abstract backdrop. It is held within another plant’s transformed body. Perception becomes slower, closer, and more material.
The surface does not disappear. It participates. And through this participation, the encounter with the plant unfolds over time.
