Oval Rings

Nash has found the oval forms of plant cells aesthetically beautiful, especially as a colour experience. He has responded to them in sculpture and drawings.

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Oval Rings at Kew Gardens

Date and material

2012
Wingnut

Quercus rubra, red oak, magnified in cross section

Red oak under the microscope Photo by Peter Gasson

Wood anatomy at Kew

Kew holds a collection of over 95,000 microscope slides documenting the anatomy of plants – one of the largest such collections in the world. It is used to study plant anatomy and for identification when only fragments of a plant are available.

Nash has spent some time looking at this collection, especially slides of the tree species he works with. This slide shows a section of secondary xylem in red oak (Quercus rubra) stained with safranin. The empty circles are the vessels for transporting water, which are large in oak. Oak is described as ‘ring porous’ because the vessels tend to be much wider in spring when the tree is growing fast and needs to move water quickly up the tree.

Oval Rings drawing by David Nash

Inspired by plant cells

Continuing the red and black theme from his previous work, Nash has made both red and black drawings inspired by using a microscope to view slides of cellular matter. The black works in particular draw on the appearance of carbonised cells under a microscope – however, under a microscope, the plant cell edges appear edged in silver.