Britton Neubacher

Organized Chaos, exhibited at San Diego Museum of Art, 2022

Suspended-animation botanical art. Now available for acquisition.

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Materials: Fully-preserved (maintenance-free) and all-natural botanicals on redwood

Dimensions: 3-sided 13’ x 13’ x 13’ free-standing redwood pyramid frame

Organized Chaos is a sustainably-minded botanical design drawing on the healing effects of plant fractals and sacred geometry. This all-original work was conceived for Art Alive 2022 as the feature installation inside SDMA’s central rotunda.

For the exhibition, this 3-sided floating wood pyramid, constructed by Jason Lane of JXL Studio and illustrated by Rick Froberg, was transformed by plant artist Britton Neubacher via 160 lbs of fully preserved moss and lichen, ferns, flowers, pods, vines and the exalted fungi. Neubacher employed “power” shapes, the Fibonacci sequence, and Op Art visuals to offer a mesmerizingly immersive space for healing and transcendence within our challenging times.

This emphasis on preserved plants moves us beyond single-use materials into more focused conversations between people and nature. Fecund and untamed elements juxtapose with the geometry of nature’s organizing principles, illustrating the intimate relationship between chaos and order. What feels like a chaotic breakdown of our bodies and our planet could be fertile composting material for more optimized systems of wellness. Organized Chaos and its focus on ecological sustainability offers a hopeful view into all life as regenerative and learning-in-every-moment, even as it seemingly unravels.

Neubacher’s installation is creatively inspired by the optical illusion artist Victor Vasarely, “Altarpiece No.1” by artist-mystic Hilma af Klint, and the “higher ground” Permaculture mounds supporting medicinal flowers and herbs. The pyramid shape stimulates plant growth, going back to the gardening techniques of ancient Egypt, and remains a mystical symbol for life after death. Physically, Pyramids have a strong ionization effect within the body, producing negative ions that in turn strengthen well-being. It is said that meditating or just taking a nap under a pyramid helps to synchronize the seven central energy centers of the body. The form is grounding and ascending at once.

Like the pyramid, human bodies are a meditation between the earth and the cosmos. Organized Chaos celebrates the growth edge always alive within the natural world and the transformation that’s possible as we walk along it.

Britton Neubacher is a crisis worker turned botanical designer living and working in San Diego. Projects under her company TEND aim to advance a sense of well-being by bringing life to green-starved spaces. Artistically, Neubacher explores the animating relationship between people and plants and the natural order/disorder of our complex partnership –so that something more hopeful can be born between us.

For sales and exhibition inquiries, please contact Stacy Kelley at Set + Drift.

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