Velarde is delighted to announce the arrival of a new body of work by artist Frances Gynn RWA. Contemporary Botanicals references the tradition of botanical art and includes a contemporary element - plastic and the effect of plastic pollution on flora and fauna.
"Within this body of work, I decided to take a single flower head from spring’s offering and highlight the physical and emotional effect of their presence. In ‘Meadow Buttercup’, the intense yellow is painted with a sludgy green background as you might see in nature, with the centrepiece of the flower showing a concentrated content of plastic. The word ‘buttercup’ has been removed from the english dictionary, making its presence all the more poignant. A loss of language as well as the physical existence of an endangered species.
I record plastic debris by taking acrylic paint casts (painting found and single use plastic with acrylic, peeling it off, and placing it in the work), making them part of the piece. The patterns on the acrylic casts have become part of our visual language of discarded plastic. These now familiar to all consumers (perhaps only subconsciously), but largely unremarked in everyday life. The result is an impenetrable solid plastic against a more natural, more translucent oil painting or drawing.
