Pandemic nature masks: A photo essay exploring artist Estelle Woolley’s self-portraiture of foraged facemasks created during the lockdown in 2020

In the summer of 2020, during lockdown restrictions, artist Estelle Woolley walked the lanes surrounding her family farm, foraging plants and flowers that she then used to make a series of floral masks. Woolley subsequently took a series of photographic self-portraits wearing her ephemeral creations; it is these self-portraits that form her artwork. This essay explores Woolley’s creative process, from walking and foraging in the Cheshire countryside to assembling her masks and creating her self-portraits; key themes and discussion points include isolation and the power of creativity to connect us, the symbolic potential of plants and other natural materials and the link between technology and imagination. Woolley’s imaginative process translated natural elements of British fields and hedgerows into symbolic art forms, capable of speaking to people – thanks to technology – across boundaries of time and space; she used the natural landscape as a means of connecting with others at a time when we were locked away – from ourselves, from nature and, physically, from each other.