Amanda Lilleston, All That Grows in and Around Me, multiblock woodcut print, 27.5 x 27.5 in., 2024.
A holobiont is a host organism and its associated organic community that functions as a single ecological unit. There are porous boundaries between human bodies and the environments they inhabit. Living with an autoimmune disorder, where the body misidentifies “self” and “non-self,” has deepened my understanding of the delicate balance within both human physiology and our surroundings. My artistic practice examines the reciprocal relationship of the natural world and the human body: how does our environment shape us, and how do we shape and cultivate our environment? I explore the integration of human presence into the larger ecological web by combining imagery of kidneys, mammograms, and other human anatomy into some of the plants I cultivate in my home and throughout my gardens: blackberries, lupine, black cohosh, citrus, and amaryllis. Through drawing, relief carving, and printing, I merge imagery of the body with the environment, creating compositions that shift, grow, and evolve—a cultivated landscape in perpetual transformation.