Understorey

‘A beautiful, quiet, achingly tender book’ Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places

In Understorey, artist and writer Anna Chapman Parker records in prose and stunning original line drawings a year spent looking closely at weeds, our most ubiquitous and accessible plants. In gardens, on verges or clustered around municipal lampposts, weeds offer a year-round spectacle of wildlife. The benefits to us of being among greenery are well known, but what exactly are these vaguely familiar shapes that accompany our every step, yet pass beneath our notice? How and when do they emerge, bloom and subside, and what would it mean to notice them?

Meditating too on how they appear in other artists’ work, from a bramble framing a sixth-century Byzantine manuscript to a kudzu vine installation in contemporary Berlin, Chapman Parker explores the art of paying attention even to the smallest things.

Author Biography

Anna Chapman Parker is a writer, teacher and artist specialising in drawing. She trained at the University of Edinburgh and Wimbledon College of Art. Recent exhibitions and teaching collaborations include Edinburgh Festival of Art, National Galleries of Scotland and the National Trust. Her writing has appeared in Rake’s Progress and Happy Hypocrite. She lives in Berwick-on-Tweed. Understorey is her first book. Visit her website to learn more: www.annachapman.co.uk