Postcard Print Series

Carnations 

Postcard Series

Carnations are winter flowers. Blooming, blushing, brightly- a statement against the frost. Blooming red as blood, red as wine, the sort of red you only see when you close your eyes. 

lowers from ‘anthos’ and di for ‘dios’ or more commonly ‘divine’. Theophrastus named them- he was a follower of Aristotle, commonly known as the founder of bonany- he called them Dianthus caryophyllus, flowers of the gods. And how could he not? Such a sentimental flower needed some mythology to fill in the background with metaphors. 

 In the words of the botanical artist Rory McEven. 

“I paint flowers as a way of getting as close as possible to what I perceive as the truth, my truth of the time in which I live”.

Like McEven I am looking for a simple sort of truth. The kind that blooms. That needs no explanation, or validation, it simply exists, like a carnation, more clearly contrasted, against the frost and the snow.