Gabriella Tobler

VIRTUAL TOUR

ARTIST CATALOGUE

The Abominable Mystery

My practice emerges from the tension between what is known and what remains uncertain in the natural world. Charles Darwin provides a large theoretical metaphor for this exhibition, referring to the missing fossil records in his early theories of gradual evolution, once called his “Abominable Mystery”. This ‘Mystery’ manifests in how natural and artificial systems intertwine, mutate, and evolve through material, colour and repetition. This body of work comprises preserved plants, digital translations of these forms, print media, laser-cut papers, sculptures and fieldwork - all anchored by a process of replication. Each representation within this space is a combination of organic and synthetic materials, such as processed pigments or inks, plastic, Perspex or digital media. 

This allows the works to build on this theory materially as well as conceptually. My studio now functions as a laboratory, wherein observation, experimentation and failure have become intrinsic to my making. Each piece works as a specimen in a large space of working research. The use of colour and fluorescence within my works acts as a visual language to connect to scientific testing, while evoking the synthetic and estranged. These visual decisions parallel the conceptual interplay within the exhibition, holding space for the relationship between preservation and decay while commenting on humanity's manipulation of the natural world. When one focuses on the overlap between art and science, there are evident shared tools for probing and visualising the unknown, and I co-opt this overlap within my practice. The use of the grid and repetition throughout these works mirrors both biological cycles and industrial systems – such as industrial livestock farming or large-scale scientific experiments using controlled variables. Art historian Jennifer Roberts and philosopher Jacques Rancière have become influential in my approach. They too work in a similar field of interest to my exhibition. 

Their ideas of patience, perception, and the act of looking resonate with the slow, processual and observational nature of my practice. I invite the viewer to see these works as specimens; look slowly, and to question what is organic and what is fabricated. Through colour as a medium and mode of working, alongside repetition, the work aims to evoke both fascination and discomfort, a mix of sensations serving to remind us of our entanglement with the natural world and its fragility. Amid ongoing ecological crises, my work reflects on the influence of human authority on the natural world. Like Darwin’s unresolved puzzle, my practice embraces uncertainty as a generative space where science, art, and imagination intertwine to understand what lies in-between, or to reimagine what may evolve next.