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When I started art school I trained to be a Fine Artist or Sculptor. However, after graduation I found myself living and painting in the Far East. I became fascinated with the exotic plants and animals I saw while travelling. It wasn’t until many years later that I took my Master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in London. It was there that I specialised in painting one species of which I knew very little: the Ginger or Zingiberaceae family of which there are over 1500 members. Graduating from the RCA in 2004, I again found myself in East Asia and now travel throughout the region painting Gingers in their natural habitats. I have a deep respect for the Natural History illustrators and Botanical Artists of the past who revealed so much of the world to us. Their legacy lives in paintings that survive from hundreds of years ago. Currently digital methods are used by scientists in their work. Photographs are not made to last for centuries. What record will we leave for the future of flora and fauna from the rainforests that have been desecrated ? In the last five years I have witnessed many changes in the rainforests and jungles that are home to the Gingers. Borneo alone has lost nearly half its rainforests to logging and ‘palm oil plantations’. My role as a botanical artist has changed rapidly with the realisation that I can no longer depend on natural resources being preserved. It is not uncommon to return to a region and find that it has been levelled or dammed and the indigenous tribes displaced. I hope that by painting the species I find and recording their local uses there may be some trace left of the fragile ties that bind us to nature. I would like to thank the tribal peoples from Tibet to Borneo who have helped me and housed me in their longhouses and wooden homes and shared their folklore with me. Without the guidance of botanists, chief among them Prof. Mark Newman, and horticulturalists, I would have been blind to the beauty and ingenuity of the Gingers. I am also very grateful to the museums who have supported me by showing my work and to the Linnean Society for honouring me with a Fellowship. Sandy Ross Sykes |