FLOWER POWER

WHITE ORCHIDS, 2011 Acrylic on canvas, 36×36″

TWILIGHT ORCHIDS, 2011 Acrylic on Canvas, 40×40″

WATERLILY, 2005 Acrylic on Canvas, 36×36″

WILTED, 2012, Acrylic on Canvas, 24×36″

SCARLET SHAWDOWS, 2011 Acrylic on Canvas, 40×40”

ORANGE ORCHIDS, 2013 Acrylic on Canvas, 40×40″

INSCRUTABLY WILD, 2010 Acrylic on Canvas, 40×40″

IKEBANA – POPPIES, 2011, Acrylic on Canvas, 18×36”

ICY BEAUTY, 2011 Acrylic on Canvas, 40×30″

AMARYLLIS, 2006 Acrylic on Canvas, 24×36″

BOUGAINVILLEA, 2005 Arcylic on Canvas, 36×18″

I have always loved flowers for their beautiful colours, incredible variety and amazingly detailed shapes. How can something so tiny be so beautiful? Unfortunately, most of us won’t spend a lot of time looking at a particular flower. But, when you do, it seems as if an entirely new world opens up right in front of you. All that incredible detail that makes up those delicate shapes – the folds, the wrinkles, the translucency of the petals, the sometimes almost alien-like shapes of stigma, style and filament – isn’t that amazing?

Of course, I wasn’t the first one who painted flowers in a large scale to show off their hidden beauty. American artist Georgia O’Keeffe was decades ahead of me and justified her motivation to paint gigantic flowers as follows:

I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.

After seeing her inspiring work, I no longer could.