Cut flowers series 2025 -

I spent 10 years as a flower grower. I grew proteas and native flowers and eventually I became a ‘farmer florist’, providing bouquets and flower arrangements for weddings, funerals and special occasions. I made countless bouquets and often felt that making a bouquet was similar to creating a collage. It seems obvious to me now, but when I first started making collages from my linoprints, I didn’t imagine I would come full circle and start making bouquets again. There is a similar process to creating these collages, working with the flowers to bring form and colour together. But these are more than simply decorative. To me, they speak of what the wild landscape produces, with the plants exhibiting their struggle for existence in their twisted forms, very different from the cultivated flowers of the same species that I used to grow. There is an exuberance and a life force that they resonate with and I’m enjoying exploring that.

I made the first ‘cut flowers’ collage at the end of 2025. Some of the first of these larger pieces have been selected as finalists in art prizes and I’m excited to continue to see where this series takes me.