The Story of My Deconstructed Botanicals

My history of art training was very much in the classical kind of representational art, where the goal is to observe really carefully and produce realistic art. It was the loss of 80% of my eye sight in 2013 that changed my art-making style and gave me the courage and new perspectives I needed to be able to make more expressive and abstracted kinds of artworks. These days I love working with magazine paper cuttings, so I’ve been playing with creating more abstract and expressive artworks with those.

I recently created this series of 6 “Deconstructed Aloes” using magazine paper cuttings, acrylic paints, and Gelatos.

I worked on all 6 of these pieces at the same time – a strategy I love employing to prevent me from fussing over any one particular artwork and overworking it. I also love that working on multiple artworks at the same time creates a series that has a sense of “togetherness”. There’s something quite pleasing about a series of artworks that shares colours, textures, and shapes. I like that they are each individual artworks in their own right, and also a part of a “whole” that’s somehow more than just the collection of individual artworks. I like the Ubuntu metaphor in that.

With these pieces I’m trying to capture the “feel” and the impression of Aloes, rather than their actual likeness. I want to see how much detail I can leave out and yet still convey the sense of an Aloe. I love the painterly effect and textures I managed to achieve with the combination of paper cuttings and Gelatos, and I especially enjoy the colours and textures of the misty greys in these Deconstructed Aloes. Though, those misty greys are only delectable because of their contrast with the bright greens and reds! I love how the colours, shapes, and textures need each other.

Having so enjoyed creating the Deconstructed Aloes, I moved onto another of my favourite flowers; Proteas. I wanted these to be even more abstract, with a looser attachment to “reality”. I had such fun playing with the colours, textures, layers, and shapes of these Proteas. And I love how, just like the Aloes, the four Proteas work beautifully together as a collection!

The Deconstructed Botanicals collection are now available for purchase.

Email me at cath@cathduncan.com to purchase an original, or order your art prints here.