The Various coloured Jungle vii Painting

Working on the themes of legacy and ideas, this artwork is inspired by the correspondence between Charles Darwin (Origin of Species) and JD Hooker in the 19th Century. Hooker was the Director of Kew Gardens 1865-1885 and brought back specimens of plants from around the world. Hooker wrote to Darwin from Sikkim in the Himalayas: 'the blaze of Rhod. flowers & various colored jungle proclaims a differently constituted region in a naturalists eye & twenty species here, to one there, always are asking me the vexed question, where do we come from?.’ You can visit and see similar plants in the glass houses at Kew, built in 1844. The jungle and tropical plants housed at Kew Gardens in London inspire this artwork.