FLORAL REQUIEM
Acrylic and Pressed Flowers on Canvas | 70 X 100 cm
Floral Requiem explores the tension between beauty, decay, and preservation through an arrangement of white lilies and real preserved baby’s breath flowers.
The title itself is significant, a “requiem” is a memorial for the dead, transforming the flowers into symbols of mourning for the natural world and the damage caused by human activity.
The flowers are confined to the corner of a large, empty space, visually suppressed by the overwhelming background surrounding them.
This imbalance reflects how nature is increasingly displaced and overpowered by humanity’s presence on the planet.
The muted green-grey background creates a sense of erosion and abandonment, as though the flowers exist within a fading memory.
The baby’s breath flowers have been carefully preserved to prevent decomposition, suspending them between life and death.
This preservation becomes symbolic of humanity’s desire to control and possess nature while removing it from the natural cycles that sustain it.
Scattered torn scraps of paper containing information about the baby’s breath flower appear throughout the work, stained with bleeding red marks.
These fragmented texts represent the ignorance and disregard people often show toward the natural world despite relying on it for survival.
The contrast between the white lilies and crimson stains disrupts traditional ideas of purity and innocence.
The flowers appear wounded and violated, becoming symbols of nature permanently marked by human interference.