Handmade Manmade

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In Handmade Manmade, I contemplate the divide between the interconnectedness of the natural world (and all life) and the idealization, and subsequent objectification, of aspects of it by human culture. Other related relationships I considered while making this work are the ones between time and value, as well as between repetition, mass production, and the singular or unique. Botanical prints and images of flowers in wallpaper or textiles were my primary sources of esthetic inspiration.

I began each of the three works that comprise Handmade Manmade, Artificial Botanical by carefully choosing an artificial flower from a 99-cent store. I then create a drawing of it, abstracting the flower into separate blocks of color – creating what could be viewed as a Paint-By-Number process. Using this template as a guide, I paint “identical” versions of the artificial flower by hand. Although the set of 3 gouaches in Botanica is intended to stand alone as a complete work, there are also two other "identical" Handmade Manmade: Artificial Botanicals. In this way, the plastic mass-production of what was once a unique and natural form is the inspiration for an individual and handmade work of art that, in turn, has been put back into reproduction.