A flowery start to Spring with ‘Flowers’, an exhibition in London, UK – Part 2

kikistextileart

1 year ago

Here we are with the second part of the exhibition ‘Flowers’ that I have been to in London.

If you have not caught the first part, it is here.

We go back straight to the fashion and textiles section of the exhibition with these garments with glass beads, sequine and tulle decorations:

Sorcha O’Raghallaigh’s take on the theme of Flora.

This can be another take on the traditional very feminine flowery lace clothing:

This lace seems a tad oppressive..we can undoubtedly think about the meaning of this Girl in Lace, photo by Kent Baker of a high fashion dress by Alexander McQueen, 1996. I like how the edges of the lace around the shoulders are very organic.

And what about these flowery high end sandals?

Manolo Blahnik’s take on the theme, also 1996.

There was also some artistic experimentation on recycled textiles, such as this on Denim:

Embroidered Denim on tea-stained fabric by Stephanie Comilang. I feel that the mounting on a solid wood board requiring a supporting shelf seems more like a statement of some kind than actual necessity, as it must make it quite a bit heavier and the whole arrangement bulkier, don’t you think?

And for the milliners:

By Sorcha O’Raghallaigh. Sequins, wire and mesh. Not overly practical, but it seems very Lady of Spring kind of look.

And we can not really finish this fashion show without the wedding dress and jewellery:

Daniel Roseberry designed it for Schiaparelli in 2024, with handpainted leather flowers: I can’t imagine it being very comfy, but surely this is not the only consideration on that special day..

Flower shapes are Italian jewellery brand Bucellati’s own distinctive mark on the jewellery brands landscape.

Going forward, the exhibition also had a wall of stylized flower prints, all pretty similar in concept and disposition, all apparently making references to the famous ‘Flowers’ series by Andy Warhol:

The original ‘Flowers’ prints by Andy Warhol that have been hugely reproduced and copied/referenced to since their conception in the 60’s. He used an interesting method to come to this design that he later reproduced in hundreds of prints: he took photos by Patricia Caulfield on a magazine, simplified the images by flattening, cropping and amending the contrast, then screen-printed them or painted them on canvas in different colorways.

Something quirkier in mixed media seems like a parody of our flower veneration when it comes to indoor plants: take the exotic but so very common now Phalaenopsis orchid..

You could surely do something similar in needlefelt, but this is painted bronze, aluminium steel, and epoxy. By Tony Matelli

Another mixed media artwork that used fabric was this one, that I particularly noticed for its use of colour:

This mixed media artwork has an interesting choice of colours. Wood, grout, fabric, acrylic paint, resin, polymer clay, metal, wire. By Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg

A huge success with kiddies and also adults was this moving structure by William Darrell. The plastic petals were constantly rotating.

It does not seem much in a photo, its main feature was the moving petals of the flowers.

I post here also this painting because it reminded me of some of Moy Mackay’s artworks in felt, but it is by Vik Muniz in archival paint.

And I guess here we come to the very star of the show in my perspective (though by no means to the end of the exhibition, that was huge!): a big immersive installation that I loved, by Rebecca Louise Law, an installation artist based in Wales. It took years of picking up dead flowers and herbs and seed pods, with substantial donations by public parks and private gardens. I can not even imagine the time she must have spent on installing the whole in the gallery, as each dangling strand was carefully tuned in terms of shape and colour: only being inside the room could give an idea of the patient planning of each part.

I could not photograph it in full, as it completely covered the whole room ceiling to floor. There were big arms extending towards different corners of the room, each made of many many single filaments.

I can not add too many photos but this may give you a better idea of what I am talking about in terms of individual strands: ridiculous amounts of flowers and herbs just in one of this, all linked with very thin copper wire in long freely moving filaments.

This big installation was about the connection of us humans with the earth, and about meditating on life, death and the space that is between life and death. I found it awe inspiring for the sheer technical challenge of planning and creating it, and I can not explain the moving feeling that one got by slowly walking in the room and looking up and down at the cascading strands of flowers and herbs with their subtle changes of colours and shapes perfectly paced to create a rhythm in the composition. This aspect could not really come through in my photos, as the variations were too subtle to show well in photos and only being there would do to experience it, unfortunately.

Another artist using real flowers and muted colours, but singularly and to completely different, streamlined effect is Stephen Doherty with this Giclee print:

Interesting was also a small section of the exhibition on the use of flowers in protest, with some photos of historical examples such as this very American one:

This was shot in 1967 at the Pentagon by S. Sgt. Albert R. Simpson.

Next was a room about flowers in music, film and literature: the walls were packed with famous album covers and film posters, and display cases were showing books. There are of course hundreds of examples of flowers in any of these fields!

Here I found a nice textile take on the first and most famous fairies books, the ones by Cicely Mary Barker, and I took photos for Leonor (you may remember her post about sewing dolls clothes, if not, read it here):

This is Sweet Pea Miniature Costume, created in 2019 (though it feels older to me, due to the muted colours) by Vin Burnham and property of The Frederik Warne and Ladybird Archive.

This is just to give you a rough idea of this room. This is part of the music section.

Following this, there was a room with an interactive installation were weird digital flowers kept being generated by AI in response to people’s movements, becoming by turns luscious alien jungles or more sedated growing stems. It was not very suitable to photos, so we just sat there a while observing and, to be honest but do not tell anybody, gratefully having a rest.

Followed more flowers in various medias, from cut steel to cut paper:

I liked this composition of linocut on handmade paper by Grace Gillespie, as it very much linked to the William Morris section that we had already passed in the first half of the exhibition:

I may find inspiration for printmaking ideas in this..

There was a room on flowers and plants in Science and in Medicine, with botanical drawings and paintings, and also mathematical works inspired by plants and flowers proportions. The room included a Damien Hirst’s work about Valium with spots in the exact shape of daisy seeds, that might be of interested to the more science oriented of us:

Apparently, those are not random dots, but precisely determined. Lambda chromogenic print.

There was also a section on flower gardening and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, that is a venerable institution started in 1913 and whose first poster has been designed in 1935 by Margaret Calkin James. This section explored (a bit superficially) our relationship with flower growing.

A bit incongrously in my opinion, here there were two glass cases with a kind of morbid take on mixed media flowers, and it maybe says something of me that I want to post a photo of it here for you to collectively say Yuck!

Yep, it’s animal bones and teeth. How nice. By Emma Witter.

At this point fatigue had totally set in, I am afraid, and I could see that this particular artwork got to us out of proportions.

To react to this and perk up, I tried to get a few more photos only of very bright and uplifting artworks after that!

Brightly and riotous like those oils by Mimei Thompson in the New Shoots section of the exhibition.

Cute-pugs-effect warning here:

The title is also pretty funny if your first language is Italian, as it is ‘Gnocchi’ (in Italian that is a type of potato dumplings with no filling). By Ally McIntyre

I really liked this idea for using screenprint on ply in a different shape that does not need any frame at all. I can totally see how those can work well as points of interest in a room even singly. By Jess Wilson.

And with this I think that I will finish on the brightest note, so here is The End, and I hope that you enjoyed a taste of this big exhibition in London, and that it might inspire you in your creative months ahead!

Kiki

http://www.kikistextileart.com

@kiki.textile.art

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