She used petals, branches and leaves picked up on the road, and moved everyone to tears with their beauty
In the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands there is a floral art studio, where withered flowers and departed insects continue to live on in another way. The person who breathes new life into them is called Anne Ten Donkelaar.
Petals, branches and leaves picked up on the road, and the remains of insects and butterflies that died naturally in zoos or botanical gardens, all take on a different meaning in Anne's hands. In her own unique way, mixing in paper-cut flowers collected from daily life, she carefully cuts, collages and composes, and the decay and withering of life can actually shine so brightly.
Flower Constructions
Anne studied industrial design, and her work was designing floral patterns and embroidery for cushions, so flowers and plants have always inspired her. She often pinned them onto mood boards and observed the whole composition and shapes. Later, Anne found that the boards she used to inspire herself were actually more interesting than the flower embroidery alone, so she threw herself into floral collage creation, which was also the starting point of her work Flower Constructions.
The Netherlands is a country where everything is well organised, and punctuality and planning ahead are Dutch habits. Anne likes to ride her bicycle around the Netherlands at will, but she also yearns for wild nature. Her creative inspiration comes more from a longing for travel to foreign countries, or fantasies about other planets. For example, an imagination of a planet covered in all kinds of plants and flowers.
Life is the source of art, and she often takes walks in nature, visits accessory shops, painting studios, gardening markets and so on to seek inspiration.
Learning the technique of sunken carving. Anne said that she was not familiar with this technique before, but was very curious about how to use it. So she did a small experiment: pressing flowers into the machine, and in the end the colour fell off the flowers, leaving a little pigment and the flower structure on the paper. This result surprised her very much.
Anne said that the most attractive part of flower collage for her is that the finished works look as if they come entirely from nature, but in fact the whole process is almost entirely handmade by humans.
For Anne, being able to comfort people's hearts is the most meaningful part of a work. Once a client called her after the funeral of a beloved one, asking her to make a flower work for the funeral. Anne dried the flowers in the shade, made supports and structures, and placed and surrounded them in a picture frame with a door flap, so that when she missed the deceased, she could lift that little door and look at the flowers inside. When receiving this work made by Anne, the client was very happy; the client's emotions and feelings for the deceased gave this work a completely different and deeper meaning.
In Anne's heart, the most ideal life is: in a warm country, find a rural place near the sea to live, with a big garden full of flowers and fruit.
Broken Butterflies
To breathe vitality into lives that have already withered, to repair broken lives, in Anne's heart, this is also a "shining" thing!
Flowers, dried stems and slender needles build colourful gardens one after another, and the effect of light and shadow makes the whole flower-and-plant picture more three-dimensional, with a sense of vigorous vitality.
The structure of the flower is a three-dimensional collage of pressed flowers and carved flower images. Each element is carefully placed in the picture to create depth. This is a flower universe full of fantasy.
Imagine a big bang, with flower seeds thrown into space like fireworks. What will happen? The newly growing flowers evolve and bloom like nebulae. These landscapes are full of a sense of space, and you feel as if you can pass through them.
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