Cristina Schek's Fern Girl, a monumental 4 × 4 metre surreal botanical portrait, is presented on the W4th Plinth in Chiswick, London, a public art initiative curated by Abundance London. Unveiled by Cynthia Valianti Corbett, art historian and Founder and Director of Cynthia Corbett Gallery, the installation marks a significant milestone in Schek's artistic career.
Cristina Schek becomes the first artist invited to present two different works on the W4th Plinth, following her acclaimed The Ceiling in the Sky, unveiled by Dame Siân Phillips in 2023.
Built from layers of Schek's own photographs, including ferns photographed in London's green spaces, Fern Girl explores the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Inspired by the resilience of ferns, plants that have existed since long before the dinosaurs, the artwork brings together photography, digital montage and surrealist imagination. The human figure gradually merges with the surrounding foliage, suggesting a forest deity and dissolving the boundaries between body, vegetation and landscape.