Umi is a woman, a tree, a womb, and a bower. Taking its name from the Arabic word for ‘mother’, this figure welcomes visitors into her nurturing shade.

The work draws inspiration from Gaia: both the goddess of Greek mythology and John Lovelock’s idea of the earth as a single, self-regulating organism. He wrote of the world as alive but “not as the ancients saw her – a sentient Goddess with a purpose and foresight – but alive like a tree. A tree that quietly exists, never moving except to sway in the wind, yet endlessly conversing with the sunlight and the soil.”

Umi is a reminder of the feminine imagery that has long offered understanding of the vast, intricate natural world.