Woodend Barn, Banchory, Aberdeenshire.
Curated by Lorraine Grant, Mark Hope and Anne Douglas

This major exhibition of previously unseen work is a powerful, and visually beautiful, illustration of the ways in which artist John Newling explores the relationships between the natural world and systems of value within society.

Since 2009, Newling has been creating art works that are constructed, primarily, through the growing, observing and preserving of Moringa Oleifera trees. Often referred to as the Miracle Tree or Famine Tree, gram for gram, the Moringa leaves contain: seven times the vitamin C in oranges, four times the calcium in milk, four times the vitamin A in carrots, two times the protein in milk and three times the potassium in bananas. It is for this and other extraordinary properties of this tree that it has been referred to as the world’s most generous tree.

The paintings are maps of a kind, into and through which Newling explores his relationship to the trees and to wider ecology. They are a truly beautiful cartography of language, colour and shape; islands that Newling hopes may never be lost. www.woodendbarn.com