Flower Power

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Flower Power is a series of brooches comprised of 1960’s Flower Power jewellery juxtaposed with Lotus Flowers. As the title suggests, the work explores the power of flowers, and their relationship with light. Lotus flowers open and turn towards the sunlight during the day and close at night, and they are both a Hindu and ancient Egyptian symbol of the Sun God.  Their power also resides in their strong medicinal properties and they are believed to possess ecstatic, mind altering potencies.

Flower Power explores the powerfully colourful, yet invisible, relationship which exists in nature between flowers, insects and UV light. UV light reveals colours and patterns on flowers which are invisible to the human eye, however bees and insects use a broader spectrum of light to see and are therefore attracted to the source of pollen and nectar via the “invisible” colours and patterns. In my work, painterly, revealed and concealed layers of colour are applied to the flowers, however, the petals also have an invisible, concealed coating of photo-chromic light-sensitive paint overlaid with light reflector beads, which, when activated by UV light & the sun, transforms the pieces from white to an arresting interplay of radiant colour and light.

Flower Power plays with powerful mystery – for we only ever see part of the picture, and the inherent qualities of light, as jewellery has traditionally been a beacon for the interplay of colour and light. My photo-chromic jewellery allows us to engage with an object which is constantly changing in response to its environment. Depending on the time of day, season, and environment in which they are worn, it reveals its innate qualities differently and alters our perceptions, revealing the power in the concealed.