J.W. Fike's Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of the North American Continent

From time to time I like to feature botanical photographers who aim to follow in the tradition of botanical illustration by being both accurate and informative as well as having a visual aesthetic.

​Last week I added Anna Atkins (1799-1871) to the list of Past Masters. She was an English botanist who developed photography as a medium for recording images of plants. Her use of cyanotope impressions is noteworthy.

Today I want to highlight J.W. Fike (Jimmy Fike)  who I've been aware of for some time.

Fike has embarked on a major and very ambitious project to record the wild edible botanicals found on the North American continent. In doing so he is having annual exhibitions around the USA of place-specific plants related to the area in which the exhibition is held.

Recording wild edible botanicals

J.W. Fike’s Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of the North American Continent - images from his blog highlighting his photographic technique

Fike's approach to recording wild plants is to highlight the parts which are edible in colour while rendering the rest of the plants less emphatically.  It very neatly highlights the edible parts without any need for labelling. His resulting images are also reminiscent of the cynatope impressions used by the early photographers such as Anna Atkins.

Within my system the plant is excavated, arranged in the studio, photographed, then illustrated digitally in such a way as to render the edible parts in color while the remaining parts, less emphatically, read as contact prints.  

Current Exhibition in California

California Poppy, 50"x28", 2015, Photographed in Miramonte, CA. Copyright J.W. Fike

The current exhibition is of J.W. Fike’s Photographic Survey of the Wild Edible Botanicals of California. It opened last week at the Art Gallery at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, CA. ​The exhibition focuses on wild edible plants relevant to California.

Date: 19th May 2016 - 26th August 2016 (Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m - admission free.)
Location: Founders Hall Art Gallery 2nd Floor, Soka University, 1 University Drive, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656  Map and directions

Last week his exhibition earned him coverage by the Los Angeles Times with this article Haunting flowers: The eerily beautiful California botanical art of J.W. Fike

Currently, I’ve photographed over ninety plants in seven different states and plan to continue the survey until I’ve created a collection that spans the continental United States.

You can see what his exhibitions look like in reality in this post about the past exhibition at the The University of Mary Washington Galleries in 2015.

Filaree (also known as Stork's Bill), 34"x30", 2015, Photographed in Miramonte, CA. Copyright J.W. Fike

About J W Fike

• Education: BA in Art from Auburn University; MFA in Photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art under the tutelage of Carl Toth.
• ​Employment: taught art at Wake Forest and Ohio Universities and is currently an Art Faculty Member at Estrella Mountain College in Avondale, Arizona.
  
• Photography: His photographic work endeavors to find creative, contemporary ways to approach landscape by incorporating place, identity, ecology, and mythology.
  
• Exhibitions:  Fike's series on wild edible plants has been exhibited in various shows across the county