My paintings are about inspiring hope in a dying natural world through the symbolic representation of floral hybrids. The botanical themes of regeneration, transformation and growth - from the poetic to the personal, are the basis of my thoughts and creative expression.

The conceptual “seeds” of these recent paintings evolved from my decades-long work as a professional florist, recent sketches of pressed flora from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium at the Harvard library, and gouache studies of ice age plants currently flowering in Siberian petri dishes: the 32,000 year old stenophylla seeds were extracted from a prehistoric squirrel’s nest and regrown in 2012.

My drawings converge intuitively on canvas by way of vibrant acrylic, loose brushstrokes, chiaroscuro lighting and daubs of oil pastel. The resulting imagery suggests a netherworld of brooding activity, decay and gothic blooms that mirror Dickinson’s historical flora. Upon further reflection, I’ve come understand that these paintings represent the vestiges of theoretical garden for me to escape into — a place for poetry, reinvention and perhaps self preservation, — a place that shimmers in our spacial consciousness, even in these darkly unsettling times. 

                                                                                                       Photo Credit - Willy Somma