INKQ Edition #6

Edition #6 shines a spotlight on the combined beauty and science of flowers and comes with some diverse and stunning creative interpretations of flora, including as our centrefold, an utterly amazing A1 page spread entitled ‘Natives’ by the celebrated New York artist Nancy Blum.

Alongside Nancy Blum, we are nothing short of absolutely delighted to feature the surreal photographic work which captures the vision of Japanese flower artist and botanical sculptor Azuma Makoto and his notable ‘Exobiotanica project’, where, amongst other actions he launched a bonsai tree into space.

Continuing our illustrative theme and the sheer diversity of botanical representation, we are showcasing the bright and arresting works of E V Day and Vivienne Rew. EV Day’s piece is taken from her Seducer’s series where flowers were pressed in a microwave, scanned digitally, and printed on photo paper at 18 times their original size. Each image is manipulated by taking exactly half the image, and mirroring it, thereby forcing a perfect symmetry upon the natural geometry of each flower.

In contrast, Vivienne Rew gives us ‘Metamorphosis – Life cycle of Papaver Orientale‘ which details the life cycle of the humble Poppy through growth and decay in intricate depth of detail and brilliance.

No issue of INKQ would be complete without some thought provoking scientific and literary analysis from the botanical world. We are delighted to be featuring Amy Sheltons’s Florilegium HoneyFlow project alongside Nicolas Strappini, who was shortlisted for last year’s Lumen Prize for his investigations with physical science apparatus. Nicolas writes about his research into electrostatic discharges demonstrating a wide spectrum of scientific thought, while Sheena Calvert’s scholarly dissertation; ‘Merian, Dickinson and Midgley, at the Intersections of Science, Art, Poetry and Philosophy’ is a sublime and intriguing journey into a fascinating subject.