Bouquet is artist Shannon Clegg‘s biophilic sculptural vessels series that comprised of dozens of flowers dried and pressed into intricately constructed mesh. Growing up in the flora of Cape Town’s Table Mountain, Clegg had an affinity to shape those naturally harvested materials into innovative forms. That is the origin of these beautiful flower vase. After Clegg’s processing, the vase-like preserved works extend the vibrancy and supple forms of purple statice or burgundy kangaroo paw from approximately ten days to upwards of five years.
To create the botanical pieces, Clegg researched at The Herbarium at The Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. She describes “looking back through archival methods for storing flowers pressed by their botanists around the world and the types of equipment they use to collect and press flowers.” Following her explorations at Kew, Clegg developed a hand-mold process that she utilizes to shape and preserve cut plants. Each three-dimensional piece takes about six weeks to complete.
We usually say a sculptural vase is a piece of decoration itself without any flowers inside. However, Clegg’s sculptural vessels seem even better. They are not only very decorative, they have flowers as well.
If you like this Bouquet series, you can visit artist’s site or follow news about upcoming exhibitions and available sculptural vessels on Instagram.
