sense of kinship with these vibrant, silent beings led me to explore the iconic forms of trees in the series of pieces called Seedlings. I wanted to examine, in the palms of my hands, the shapes that have fascinated humankind throughout time. We've come to see gnarled oaks as symbolizing masculine strength, and we imagine that the feminine boughs of a willow seem to weep. Across all cultures, evergreens have represented eternal life, while the trees that shed their leaves in autumn remind us that individual lives are finite, but that life regenerates in spring.

It may seem ironic that I have chosen to create these "natural selections" out of manufactured elements like wire, plastic, glass, netting and wax. My "forest" of pieces is admittedly an imagined ecology. Artists who work with found objects are the opposite of wood carvers - we use the castoffs of industrial society to evoke the beauty of organic forms.

Of all the manufactured elements used for these pieces, the antique paper piano rolls that comprise Pulp Music seem especially fitting. Humans have long turned trees into instruments, and in the music we've made with wooden instruments we have heard the harmonies of nature.

The experience of creating these pieces has caused me to see trees in a new way - beyond admiring them as creatures beautiful in form, my appreciation of the crucial relationship between humankind and nature has deepened significantly. As Marcel Proust once wrote, "The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

• Resume: Maddy Le Mel