Experimenting with growing flowers – studio practice

Dead Roses

Studio practice

To advance my art, I want to experiment with live flower therefore i have researched some flowers and started growing them.

sunflowers

The sunflower means many things within different cultures, all good meanings. they are a bright colorful flower that grows with a lot of strength in their root, this signifies how they are blooming in themselves being there roots and self belief are strong like how people who get body modifications can feel when changing their body.

These flowers are show love, loyalty and ambition. the first meaning has a story behind it explaining its meanings.

https://www.ftd.com/blog/share/sunflower-meaning-and-symbolism

Sunflowers have been used within art many times in different ways;

  1. ‘Sunflowers’ – irma stern painted in 1942 (oil painting) (Sunflowers by Irma Stern | Obelisk Art History (arthistoryproject.com))
  2. ‘Sonnenblumen’ – Valentin Ruths lived 1825 – 1905 (oil painting) (Valentin Ruths | SONNENBLUMEN | MutualArt)
  3. ‘Sunflowers seeds’ – Ai Weiwei created in 2008 (porcelain) (Sunflower Seeds (artwork) – Wikipedia)
  4. ‘Sunflowers’- John Bratby made in 1969 (Sunflowers, 1969 – John Bratby – WikiArt.org)

Morning Glory

This plant comes in many different forms and colours, their meaning is love, life and death. This is due to the blooming cycle of the flower, with the morning light they bloom and slowly close as the day ends.

Contextually this shows the longing of a person just wanting to be who they, by having tattoos and piercings. Having these coming through a body is a representation of the tattoos/ wanting of them coming out the body. another representation is how each person would feel different, this can be seen through the colours.

What Is the Meaning of Morning Glory Flowers? Symbolism & Fun Facts (trulyexperiences.com)

Lavender

The purple flower can mean purity, devotion and serenity but also the colour mean royalty.

Crown Chakra is a place on the body where we can be connected with higher power.

Know Your Crown Chakra And How To Tap Into Its Power (chakras.info)

This could be seen as how some people are more connected to themselves than others, by this they are different to the perfect person. the colour purple then bring a question of are the people who are themselves better than everyone else making them royalty as they are themselves or not?

Lavender Meaning: History, Symbolism, Facts About Lavender | Petal Talk (1800flowers.com)

photos of flowers being used in history Timeline newest to oldest.

This website has an amazing timeline of flowers painted throughout history, these are the photos from this website. (the websites photos are the ones labelled 1-12 (i added the rest).

12 Famous Flower Paintings, from Monet to Mondrian (mymodernmet.com)

Red Anthurium Flower by Alfia Koral (2020)
Flower Painting by Chris Flodberg (2010)
water lily flowers by Alan Wolton (2000)
1) White Vase with Flowers by Odilon Redon (1916)
2) Amaryllis by Piet Mondrian (1910)
3) Water Lilies by Claude Monet (1908)
4) Flower Garden by Gustav Klimt (1905)
5) Bouquet of Roses by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (c. 1890 – 1900)
6) Still Life with Irises by Vincent Van Gogh (1890)
7) Roses and Lillies by Henri Fantin-Latour (1888)
8) Bouquet of flowers by Edouard Manet (1882)
9) Hibiscus by Hiroshige (c. 1845)
10) Flowers in a Glass Vase by John Constable (c. 1814)
11) Flowers in a Glass Vase, with a Cricket in a Niche by Rachel Ruysch (1700)
12) Still Life with Flowers by Ambrosius Bosschaert (1617)

Meaning of flowers vidoes

In these two videos are different meanings of flowers, although there will be many different meanings for flowers within different cultures these videos are more historical meanings. Even thought my interest is more cultural than historical , I wanted to do research into both to gain a better understanding.

My beginning of growing my own flowers#

Below are photos of me growing my plants and moving them into the art, i will make another post to see how this experiment goes. I don’t think it will work but I wanted to try anyway, I will need to water these ever other day and record how long they take to grow and show in order to know timings for my final body of work..

making the box
growing the young plants
moving the plants to the art
plan for the box and growing the flowers

Contextually the flowers all have their own context that are shown by their colours, stories and their culture. but also their physical presents, this is by how they are within the body and they grow out of the skin in order to bloom. Showing how some people feel they need to alter/ add to their bodies to see like their inner self.

there are millions of flowers that have meanings and that i could use, therefore if i do use another flower or find another meaningful flower i will add another post to add research and understanding to my project.