Herbarium
A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens used for scientific study. A florilegium is a collection of botanically accurate paintings that record the form and detail of plants.
This ongoing body of work explores the herbarium as both a scientific archive and a cultural object. By bringing together the scientific specimen and the decorative image, it questions how plants are preserved, interpreted and remembered. Historically, dried specimens formed the foundation of botanical collections, while botanical illustrations provided an essential means of recording colour, structure and identifying features that pressing could not always preserve.
These Plant Profiles begin as traditionally prepared pressed plant specimens. Damaged flowers and leaves are carefully repaired or replaced with hand-made paper reproductions, creating hybrid objects that combine the material evidence of the herbarium with the visual precision of the florilegium. The resulting specimens occupy an uncertain space between documentation and reconstruction, preservation and invention.
Some works incorporate preserved butterflies, extending the dialogue between botanical and entomological collections and drawing on the traditions of natural history museums, where plants and insects were collected, classified and displayed as complementary records of the natural world.
Although the repaired plants appear restored, the surviving organic material continues to age and deteriorate. Their gradual decay reveals the impossibility of complete preservation, positioning the work within traditions of still life while reflecting on the fragility, impermanence and continual transformation of the natural world. Rather than concealing loss, these interventions make visible the acts of care, reconstruction and interpretation that underpin every archive.
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