“Daffs,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters. All images courtesy of Moosey Art Norwich, shared with permission
The botanical works of West London-based versifier Ant Hamlyn are studies of dichotomies and paradoxes. Polarities of the organic and synthetic, repletion and danger, and preservation and destruction sally from his sculptures, which are comprised of playful, stylized interpretations of natural life pressed under sheets of acrylic.
On view as part of his solo show Tread Softly, Hamlyn’s most recent pieces include yellow daffodils, nightshades, and a pink flowering cactus that, although traffic-stopping for their blossoms, are extremely harmful if touched or ingested in real life. This sinister undertone pervades the soul of work, which widely addresses the precarious purlieus between life and death. All of Hamlyn’s squished fabric specimens, for example, are depicted at their prime while stuff suffocated under a polyurethane coating and plastic panel. The versifier shares:
When I think well-nigh the past time of pressing flowers,’ I think well-nigh how when we crush a flower to preserve its beauty, we substantially destroy it to preserve it. These works are at once a triumph and a critique. The human relationship to flowers is a ramified one in the way they symbolise love and loss simultaneously. For example, we requite dying flowers to each other both in triumph and in grief.
If you’re in Norwich, you can see Tread Softly through October 8 at Moosey Art. Otherwise, throne to the artist’s site and Instagram for increasingly of his squished botanicals. (via It’s Nice That)
“Fly Agaric,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters
“Deadly Nightshade,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters
“Pink Flowering Cactus,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters
Left: “Thistle,” 120 x 95 x 15 centimeters. Right: “Red Dragon Fly Trap,” 60 x 50 x 8 centimeters
“Lily of the Valley,” 60 x 50 x 8 centimeters
