PLANTS OF ANDALUCIA – REALISTIC AND ABSTRACT DRAWING
The series Plants of Andalucia is developing and evolving, as I focus on different aspects of nature. In the beginning, I was mostly fascinated by the beauty of expression of plants. As a result, I was creating mainly realistic drawings. Later, I was observing them closer, which recently resulted in creating work which is seemingly more abstract drawing.
MY TWO NATURES
The way from figurative to abstract imagery is very short. As a student of printmaking, I was creating both figurative, delicate etchings depicting plants and abstract, strongly textural prints. For this reason I often heared from my teachers that I have two natures, that “There are two Joannas.” With time, I started to join those two worlds in my artwork. That is how abstract, textural elements became an integral part of prints depicting plants. Recently, my great fascination with the macrocosm of plants has led me to come back to abstract drawing in the series Plants of Andalucia.
THE ABSTRACTION OF REALISM
Nature and abstraction might seem contradictory, but in fact there are countless abstract pictures around us. It just depends on the way we look at our surroundings. I could spend hours observing plants and looking closer and closer at their forms and textures. The closer I get and the more details I see, the more my imagination wakes up and starts to whisper stories. Those are hidden between petals, on the surface of the fruit, on hairy leaves, stems and stamens.
The three drawings below depict the flower of Phlomis purpurea, the fruit of Arbutus unedo and the flower of Nerium oleander. Arbutus unedo is the most recent and seemingly the most abstract drawing in the series Plants of Andalucia. Where will it lead me next time…? I am not sure yet, but we shall soon see 🙂 In the future I will tell a little bit more about each of those plants.
LEARN MORE
If you would like to learn more about the project Plants of Andalucia, you are welcome to read previous posts here and follow my work in process on Facebook. Furthermore, I invite you to visit my Etsy shop where you can buy my artworks.
NEWSLETTER
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