Inspiration:
This artwork was inspired by Maria Sibylla Merian, a pioneer in art, science, and business.
From an early age Merian was an accomplished painter of flowers and insects and an entomologist, possessing a great ability to move between art and science. Fusing artistic endeavour and nature observation, her fascinating paintings defied Victorian categorisation. They are a fitting monument to such an unusual figure whose life, too, was a blaze of colour making her one of the greatest artist‑naturalists of her time.

Technique:
The Flowering Genius (Of Maria Sibylla Merian) was created by constructing a hand-cut collage using female photographic portraiture and photograms and photographs of flower specimens, silk moths and cocoons.
After coating the handmade paper and watercolour sheets with light-sensitive chemistry, they are left to dry in a dark room. The large-scale negatives are contact printed onto the paper by exposure to daylight (UV rays). The prints are then processed by thoroughly washing in water to remove any unexposed solution. It can then be hung to dry, developing to full density Prussian blue after 24 hours. Once dried the individual butterflies and flowers are cut out and mounted onto the print to create a multi-layered, 3-dimensional artwork along with the hand dyed silk worm cocoons and hand finished with 24-carat gold leaf.