Riotous celebrations of botanical beauty such as Isabelle Menin’s ethereal flowerscapes pull you into another world… Her densely layered digital imagery is both intriguing and peaceful.
Another hypnotic world is created by Rogan Brown. His incredibly intricate sculptures, representative of the flora around us, are crafted patiently from paper. He admits, “I am inspired in part by the tradition of scientific drawing [but] these are always superseded by the work of the imagination”.
Documenting flowers may not seem so thrilling now, but take yourself back in time, when the only flowers you’d ever seen were the ones growing in your own yard. Artists traveled with explorers and scientists to new lands during the Age of Discovery (15th-18th centuries) to document exotic ‘new’ plants and flowers. In the 18th century, “so many new plants were being discovered, there was a desperation to bring order to this chaos”! Check out this quick video by the Natural History Museum.
And, as is maddeningly typical when looking back on history, there’s a chance to champion women here: “Women have played a significant role in the development of plant science through botanical art, yet many have not received due recognition for their work as compared to their male counterparts.” Explore the work of women botanical artists in this Google Arts and Culture article.
Why can’t flowers be a tad badass? Thrush Holmes paints large, raw, irreverent works using oil, enamel and spray paint on canvas, and adds actual neon for punch.
‘Landart’ refers to ephemeral art made from foraged natural materials. Hannah Bullen-Ryner creates fleeting ground sculptures using botanicals as her brushstrokes!
If a flower could take a selfie….. These are true ‘plant portraits’ by James Lahey.
And actual photography – why not? Using the latest in high speed photography tech, Martin Klimas captures a split-second of transformation. His intent is to capture not the destruction, but the precise moment of change.
If you love botanicals, but don’t particularly want them on your wall, this stunningly gorgeous Phaidon book is a visual celebration of botanical art throughout history. Watch this intriguing video preview
For everything you ever wanted to know about botanical art and illustration, you can visit the self-proclaimed ‘top compendium’ of botanical art past and present by Katherine Tyrrell. She also has a list of her Top Picks for currently working botanical artists in North America.
And if you just can’t get enough of botanicals, millions of vintage botanical illustrations from around the world are available to download for free from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.