Artist Reception will be held on Saturday October 1, 4:00 -6:00. The public is welcome!
Wyble_3 by Neke Flora
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About the Artist
I am a botanical artist and visual storyteller. My botanical macro photographs are an invitation to look beyond the obvious, to see nature differently. The process of creating and viewing these images is a practice of getting closer to stillness, an exercise in observation, and an opportunity to make new discoveries about the things that often get overlooked. While I prefer to photograph my botanical subjects in situ using the available natural light in the great outdoors, I also enjoy studio work designing and creating stories for clients. These are brand and product images for makers, artisans, and creatives to help grow their business. I like to think the custom images I create for each client to tell their story and showcase their work products is similar to how my botanical photographs capture the distinct beauty that is unique to each plant.
Uncultivated is a series of macro botanical photographs of plants commonly considered to be “invasive” here in the Northeastern United States. In many ways this work is a coming together of my experiences in photography, conservation, herbalism, and deep ecology. These plants are vilified for the changes they produce within the landscape and local ecology. Terms like “invasive” or “weed” or “non native” and even “opportunistic” hold such negative connotations that suggest these plants provide little beyond the detrimental impacts of displacing that which is more desirable —often the cultivated.
Such widespread assertions eclipse the beauty and potential benefit of these uncultivated plants. It is my hope that these botanical photographs bring them out of the shadows, even if for only a brief moment, so that the viewer sees them differently.
This series is part of a larger, ongoing journey towards reconciliation with my own concepts of belonging and sense of place. To pause and be with these plants during a time where I felt immense heaviness and disconnection was a way to reconnect with myself and my surroundings. The plants in this series remind me that it is possible to bloom even in what seem like the most inhospitable conditions. For this, I am grateful to them.