On Floriography
2010-2012
This work originated as a response to the walled garden at Outpost, designed by Olson Kundig, in Ketchum, ID which is reminiscent of historical paradise gardens. The sculptural plants and flowers are made of wire, glue and paper that are protected by glass cloches. The plants, herbs and flowers all have historical meaning such as charity, lust, greed, mystery, and on and on and were often plants that were found in historic paradise gardens. Also often found in vanitas paintings, these symbols are opaque and obsolescent ways to think about human experience. The cloches are also vague references to the wunderkammern, or cabinet of curiosities, with its objects that offer strangeness and “otherness”, cloistered into vitrines for safekeeping and scrutinization. The paperwork/drawings consist of the remnants from which the elements of the sculptures have been cut.