2023
Oil on canvas
48 x 60 inches
Not for sale
Maryrose Crook is a New Zealand artist and musician, whose work focuses on environmental issues such as extinctions and climate change. Her paintings are held in the US, Germany, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand. She has been the recipient of various prestigious art awards in New Zealand and has undertaken numerous artist residencies. maryrosecrook.com, @maryrosecrookart
The iconic nature of the Joshua tree biome is not limited to its outward appearance. The more I discover about the organisms and their delicate balance, the more precious and symbolic the landscape becomes to me. I find whenever I paint this landscape and these trees that I am taken into a dream. The simplicity of the ancient relationship between the yucca moth and the Joshua tree; the fact that one cannot exist without the other; the fact that even the seeds of the trees depend upon local rodents to not only disperse but also to dismantle the seed pods, a task most particularly undertaken by the tiny, rare, antelope squirrel—it is all part of the completeness, spirituality and fragility of the biome.
This in turn is a representation of the vulnerability of our planet, the importance of something as apparently humble as the yucca moth, and the depth of human ignorance in misunderstanding the sacred necessity of every single life form. The title Kingdom of the Moth refers to the grandeur and beauty of this deceptively modest relationship.
The belt in the painting is an Edwardian nurse’s belt, silver linked belts traditionally given to nurses upon graduation. I feel that this reflects the care elemental to the relationship between the yucca moth, the squirrel and the Joshua tree. This is continuing a theme I developed in 2019 when I made Crepuscule: Holy Ghost—a dress painting exploring the concept of an ecclesiastical garment created by a great horned owl. It deals with the concept of devotion, or “religion” within the natural world. Here is a sense of spirituality which appears to be as instinctive as every other part of the lives of animals and plants, but which is assumed to be a uniquely human inclination. It’s not a doctrine but rather a direct understanding of the god within every living thing, which is so evident in the Joshua Tree landscape, with each tree so individual and even the rocky terrain appearing to have been created with great intention. The Butterflies and Skippers of Joshua Tree National Park by Dr. Gordon Pratt and collaborators, and the writings of botanist Robin Kobaly were both very influential in the creation of this painting. The concept of the dress as a landscape is partly a way of seeing the natural world as a being which is constantly creating itself. The dress with embroidery is a piece of handiwork, the dress is adornment; but it is also a representation of humans within an intuitive world. I find it horrific that something so divine and delicate as the bond between these beings and the incredible landscape that they cooperatively create could be swept away by human ignorance and greed.