Cherry Archer, Sativum 76

Cherry Archer
Sativum 76, 2023
Photography
16 x 24 inches

Framed by Fine Art Framing & Services


Cherry Archer’s art explores themes of memory, identity, and cultural continuity through the mediums of photography, ice, and culinary plants that have ties to her Trinidadian heritage.

Her process begins with the collection of culinary plants that evoke vivid memories of my childhood and family. The plants are arranged and then frozein water to form what Cherry refers to as a Botanical Ice Tile. The tile is illuminated with coloured light, photographed, and then printed in large format.

Similar to how ice keeps food, Cherry uses ice as an analogy for how the mind preserves memories; while the essence remains and some parts of a remembered experience are clear, other details are cloudy or deteriorate with time.

Sativum 76 is a nod to the Sunday dinners of her childhood which were always cooked by her father, shared as a family, and centered around Trinidadian cuisine. To construct the tile Cherry uses garlic (allium sativum), a plant her father grew in his garden and was ever present in his Trinidadian dishes.

Sativum 76 is part of a series currently exhibited as public art at Aberdeen skytrain station.

Cherry Archer'is a Trinidadian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist who resides in Vancouver on the unceded lands of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Her art practice explores the humanity-nature relationship and is informed by ecopsychology, a field fostering ecological thinking and documenting how exposure to nature benefits mental, physical, and emotional well-being.

Cherry Archer’s Botanical Ice Tiles are an ongoing project. Images from the series have been exhibited in galleries throughout Metro Vancouver and as public art in Richmond and Surrey, BC and in Ottawa, Ontario. Her photography appears in “Human”, the 10th issue of the internationally renowned Prix Pictet photobook celebrating sustainability and photography and in the 2022 botanical issue of PhotoEd Magazine. Cherry Archer’s art is held in private collections internationally.