Short answer? Because I want to.
Long answer? Because something has shifted, and I’m not turning back.
Painting flowers has opened up a whole new way of thinking, and I’m fascinated by the conceptual shift that has been unfolding over the past year with flowers as my focus. I’ve felt a growing confidence to break rules, give up old ideas, and move away from painting what I want to see — or what I think others want to see — toward expressing what I feel and envision.
Pushing myself into unknown territory has been thrilling. Wildly creative. Sometimes uncomfortable. Always alive.
With their organic, imperfect nature, flowers are the perfect meeting place for my love of abstract exploration and my intellectual need for structure and form. My two favourite worlds are colliding in the most beautiful, colourful way.
Emotionally healing? Yes.
Technically challenging? Absolutely.
Metaphorically topical? For sure.
But more than anything, choosing to paint flowers is about so much more for me.
Purpose Beyond the Petals
When I’m painting at my best, I’m all-in — obsessive yet meditative — hyper-focus on what’s happening on the canvas before me.
All I’m thinking about is colour and movement and shape and balance.
I feel the weight of the brush and the movement of my arm.
I watch the colours ooze and blend, blobs of paint finding their place.
Most decisions are instinctive, made in the moment, with occasional pauses for equally intense critical thought to keep the overall composition and underlying intentions strong and true.
Flowers have become the perfect arena for all of this. A place where wild expression can meet deeply satisfying structure. Where playful colour can coexist with intellectual engagement. And all of it tinged with a little uncertainty that keeps me on my toes in a super exciting way.
There’s fear there, yes — but the good kind. The kind that signals growth. The kind that feels connected to purpose.
My Flowers, My way
Yes, they’re messy and they’re loose. Sometimes unrecognizable but somehow still identifiable.
At first glance they feel familiar. On closer inspection, they’re a joyful jumble of shapes and colour.
In truth, I’m not trying to make them more “flowery.” I’m trying to lose some of the obviousness of the subject and find something far more unique.
I’m not trying to paint anyone else’s flowers but my own which in itself feels empowering and motivating. I want the curious originality of this work to defy traditional beauty, shed the baked-in sweetness of the genre, and instead express something that smiles with its own logic and imagination.
To hold beauty, yes — but beauty on my own terms.
Full Flowers Ahead
Dare I admit that this decent into flowers has only just begun? That my imagination is alight with the possibilities I’m discovering as I work? That I’m newly curious about different materials, different techniques, finding my own fresh perspective within the realm of floral painting?
Secretly, I’m excited about my potential to create work that is expressive, personal, and brave.
It’s no wonder nothing else is holding my interest right now.
Growing Freely in the Direction of Curiosity
I can’t believe I’ve spent the past two months fighting this desire to keep painting flowers.
I thought I should return to landscapes. I know what sells. I read the emails. I see the comments. I understand what my core audience expects — and it isn’t necessarily my flowers.
The voices of others had seeped into my mind and was confusing my sense of direction. I was feeling the pressure to return to those wonderful skies. But despite trying, trying, trying, I just keep coming back to flowers.
And as it turns out, happily so.
I can’t, and won’t, apologise for where my heart is leading me nor where my imagination is finding magic. Right now, that means flowers.
For better or worse, my work is deeply intertwined with my life. And to keep doing this work, I have to follow the spark.
So with great excitement, and complete unknowingness about what comes next … onwards into the garden I go.
Deeper into flowers.
