The Witch’s Garden 2019-2026
The Witch’s Garden is an ongoing series of over 60 paintings that draws on an autobiographical starting point and entangles with botanical research, the history of medicine and myth. Beginning during Hayes Greenwood’s attempts to conceive her first child, the early works reference plants associated with fertility, recalling the knowledge and power historically attributed to midwives and women labelled as ‘witches’. Later works explore plants and medicines used to dull pain or induce altered states, from early anaesthetics to psychedelic substances. Hayes Greenwood’s plants are imbued with agency, symbolism and psychological presence, hovering between the real and the fantastical. Set within soft, dissolving environments, the paintings are sensual and suggestive while also hinting at danger and toxicity. Across the series, beliefs around healing, harm, desire and transformation are used to explore how power, fear and hope are projected onto the natural world, and how these narratives continue to shape our relationship with plants, bodies and belief.
