Still Life with Flowers

Still Life with Flowers

Still life has been a constant subject throughout the history of art and came to the fore in the seventeenth century. However, it wasn’t until the eighteenth century that the French called it nature morte (dead nature) emphasizing the layered symbolism of this genre with its reminders of the transience of life and the inevitability of death.

Flowers are a common feature of still life art and I often use wild flowers in my artwork.

In my latest series called Shifting Shadows I have used the shadow as an additional symbol. The shadow in art has many meanings including the fleeting nature of existence, isolation and a distorted copy of reality.

Shifting shadows plays with these ideas questioning which is the reality and which is the shadow?

flowers and shadows