INspired by Mary Delany

(Pressed flowers on black)

Mary Delany was an English artist in the Victorian era. A late bloomer, she started her artistic journey with flowers at the age of 72. Although her works are often mistaken for watercolour, they are actually layered paper collages. Before her eyesight failed years later, Mary made almost a thousand flower pieces mounted on black, which now reside in the British Museum in London https://blog.britishmuseum.org/late-bloomer-the-exquisite-craft-of-mary-delany/

Although my pressed flower pieces on black are completely different in craft from Mary Delany’s pieces, the aesthetic of her work grabs me. I love the way that the details of each pressing come alive on a dead black background… as though the beauty and architecture of each flower has been trapped in time.