Colours of Forest Gate

The artwork aims to share stories from history, connect past and present and encourage a deeper appreciation of our local green areas – the Wanstead Flats and West Ham Park.

The left side of the artwork links to the past, depicting a male hand inspecting a sprig of blue flowers. The hand belongs to John Fothergill (8 March 1712 – 26 December 1780) an English physician and plant collector whose medical writings were influential. Fothergill built up a sizeable botanic garden in what is now West Ham Park in East London. The blue flowers he is holding are Blue Pimpernels – they were in is collection and have been recreated in a similar way to the ones drawn by Botanical Artist Ann Lee in 1771 for Dr. Fothergill.

Fothergill would often take payment in the form of rare plants and would have sailors bring seeds and new species back to him from their travels. At the time of his death there were over 3,000 species documented in his exotic collection ‘Hortus Uptonensis’.

Behind the arm is an imaginary scene of the Wanstead flats set in the early 1900s inspired by information found during the research stage.

The flats were home to the first model aero club in the UK, children would play with model boats on the lakes and up until the 1970s, cattle were free to roam and graze at their leisure.

The colour palette used on the left side is desaturated to indicate an earlier time period, except for the blue of the flowers which is bright to symbolise the inspiration and imagination present in the collaborations between Dr. Fothergill and the many botanical artists that were hired to document his vast collection of plants.

I imagined his greenhouses and gardens to be overflowing with colour and fragrance. To express this scene, the right side of the artwork explodes into bright warm colours. The flowers and leaves in the artwork, that were once part of Dr. Fothergill’s collection, include:
• Black pepper, (Piper nigrum), native to the Malabar Coast of India.
• Banana leaves, native to Southeast Asia.
• Belladonna Lilly, (Amaryllis Belladonna), native to South Africa.
• Louis Cottin (Canna), native to the Caribean and tropical South Americas.
• India Shot (Canna Indica), native to South America, Central America, the West Indies, and Mexico. It is also naturalised in much of Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.
• Green Carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus), the wild carnation is native to Greece, Italy, Spain, and other Mediterranean countries.
• Blue Pimpernel (Lysimachia monelli) also originated from the Mediterranean region.

The exotic mix of flowers and leaves is used to symbolise and celebrate the diversity and vibrancy of the Forest Gate Community, while the bees and green parakeets link back to West Ham Park.

The green carnation included in the artwork is a nod to the local LGBTQIA+ community that includes Forest Gayte Pride, a grassroots community project based in Newham since 2017. 

The story goes that Oscar Wilde popularised the Parisian trend of wearing a green carnation as a symbol of gay identity when he asked friends to wear them on their lapels to his play Lady Windermere’s Fan in 1892. Worn on the left lapel, the green malmaison carnation became a ‘code’ for men who were attracted to other men.

Did you know? The noisy green parrots (Ring Necked Parakeets) are originally from the north of India, and were brought to Britain as pets. Lots of them escaped and made their home here in suburban areas of London and the Home Counties of South-East England!