Why I Paint Big Flowers
Hint: Microscopes Are Involved
Twenty years after earning my BA in Fine Arts, I returned to college to study horticulture. There I was sitting in the Entomology laboratory staring into the dissecting microscope at the magnified eyes of a moth. I was startled! Bugs had terrified me since I was a little girl. That fear quickly turned into awe. Those microscopes opened up an entirely new world for me to experience the garden and its inhabitants in a new way, magnified and magnificent.
Those, and other moments of discovery, eventually reshaped my entire artistic practice. My work evolved in a process of discovery, creeping into my work as an artist in inquisitive steps and leaps, much like a grasshopper on life’s journey.
As a lifelong gardener, I’ve spent countless hours bent over flower beds, weeding, deadheading, and staking flowers within inches of my eyes. As a visual learner, this proximity to the plants encouraged my close observation of the colors and texture on a single flower, the architecture of the plants, and the internal structures thick with pollen.
Fascinated by what I was closely observing in my garden, I was driven to document for others so they, too, could appreciate the details as I saw them. What followed was two years of study and work in botanical illustration at the New York Botanical Garden.
Magnifying lenses I wore over my reading glasses at that time enabled me to draw and paint the fine details I observed on the flowers. I was awed by the architectural structures displayed on the external and internal parts of the flowers. They are distinctly varied from flower to flower, just as the faces of each of my family members are unique.
My four-decade-long career in computer graphics had trained my eye for detail. However, enlarging images to pixel size on a screen cannot compare to the living detail in the garden. There is an immeasurable difference between closely and delicately studying the details of a live flower and placing thousands of dollars’ worth of cameras, computers, and monitors between the petals and yourself.
As my interest and observations in the garden evolved, so did my artwork. Although I had painted gardens earlier, I began to focus more closely on individual flowers. As my flowers grew in size, so did my canvases, now measured in feet rather than inches.
My bold paintings call across the room, demanding attention so that others can experience the same sense of awe that I initially felt while staring at the moth through the microscope. Each painting is an invitation to observe what is often missed, the seductive curves, the hidden chambers harboring pollen, and the architecture designed for the continuation of life.
In magnifying these flowers to human scale, I’m not just sharing what I’ve seen, I’m asking viewers to contemplate their role in this dance with nature. I paint to stimulate wonder, the wonder I feel when seeing and thinking about the purpose of just one individual flower.
Through the philosophy embedded in my art, I aim to provoke thought and foster a greater appreciation for the delicate equilibrium that sustains us all, encouraging a more profound understanding of our interconnected existence. In both the garden and in art, beauty exists not for its own sake, but to create connection.
Like the flowers that need others to help them survive across generations, my oversized flowers wait patiently for viewers to discover the extraordinary hiding in plain sight, to bring them to life through wonder and careful contemplation.
This piece invited me in and didn't disappoint. Thank you for sharing a bit of yourself with your readers.