Flora Gregory

My focus is the relationship between humans and the rest of nature, either as an artist-maker or through socially engaged work, and the role of the imagination and storytelling in transformation, using different materials and formats. 

As an artist-maker I am working on a series, ‘Second Life’ which uses discarded metal, creating ‘metal skins’ which respond to the elements. This followed casting in bronze (such alchemy!) pieces such as ‘Charlie the Ram’ and ‘Rolling Horse’. 

‘Second Life’ is my response to the seasons and the different elements, and the pieces themselves respond to the light and wind. 

People give me discarded metal/bottle tops. They are highly engineered pieces of metal - mined, processed, designed and coloured, and after all that energy is invested, we throw them away. 

For me ‘Second Life’ is about recycling and sustainability and importantly about transformation. The bottle tops bring a history and energy with them.  When I bring them together, when I make and remake these pieces, I am responding to nature and the elements, my body is a channel. The result is that the bottle tops are given another life, the sum of them is greater than the parts.  With Second Life they become kinetic works of colour and vibrancy about wind and sunlight.

As Artist in Residence at the Wychwood Forest Trust (2017-ongoing) and walking in the Wychwood Forest I am inspired to do a series of colour sketches. 

 My MA in Social Sculpture at Oxford Brookes triggered a whole series of socially engaged work including:

Nature Rights (2018-ongoing), a collaboration with Natalie Koffman https://www.gregoryandkoffman.com. It is an invitation to explore the human-nature relationship through time and discuss what the world and our daily life will be like - when we recognise nature has rights. 

‘Do You Have a Special Relationship with An Other Than Human?’ (2018 - ongoing ) invites a sharing of other people’s experiences, and through discussion explores our own individual Special Relationship to Nature, to An Other Than Human.

‘Come and Lie in the Hay’ (2017-) is an invitation to do just that. It was held at the Wychwood Forest Fair.  While lying in the hay, there is time to reflect on the loss of our relationship with the land over the last 100 years, and the loss of 97% of our wildflower meadows since WWII. Intensification of farming methods – ploughing, drainage, reseeding, and fertiliser and herbicide, has resulted in an important loss of habitat for a huge diversity of wildlife.

The ‘Map Room’ (https://themappists.wordpress.com) was a three-year collaboration with Nimmi Naidoo and Katie Hellon, held at the Wychwood Forest Fair. ‘What Do You Wish for the Wychwood Forest?' (2023) was held at the Wychwood Forest Fair, people shared their answers on a board for others to see. ‘What's Your Favourite Place in the Wychwood Forest?' (2021)  people put their answers on a board to share with others. ‘Public Rights of Way' (2019)invited the local community to mark on a map of the Wychwood Forest where they walk. ‘Living and Working' (2018), invited people to mark on an OS map of the Wychwood Forest, where they lived and where they worked.  150 people took part. We found that few people have working connection to the land.  

Inspirations: David Abram, Thomas Berry, Hildegarde of Bingen, Rachel Carson, Cormack Cullinan, Suzi Gablik, James Lovelock, Robert McFarlane, Maya Lin, Chief Seattle, Shelley Sacks.

I worked in documentary films for over thirty years, at the same time as studying and making art and now I continue as an artist.