People press flowers in order to preserve their beauty for longer. But for artist Ant Hamlyn, this practice is much more complex than it seems, as pressing actually destroys flowers in order to conserve them.
Inspired by this complexity, Hamlyn creates intriguing artworks that show the practice of pressing flowers in a different light. They feature inflated flowers, hand-sewn out of different materials, being pressed with a see-through acrylic plate.
It is a captivating sight, as the beauty and the liveliness of the flowers still shine through despite the fact that they are being “suffocated” by the weight of the acrylic plate.
“This idea of desperately trying to preserve and celebrate a moment in time is really interesting to me, particularly in our fast-paced world,” Hamlyn shared in a recent interview with Creative Boom. “As with a flower press, we take a memory and press it before it dies. Forcing it to preserve in time. This combination of memory, nostalgia, and time are fundamental concerns throughout this show and my wider work,”
Hamlyn, who received his MA degree in fine art at Chelsea College of Art, currently works out of his studio in South West London, UK. His works have been exhibited in art galleries and museums across the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and more. You can check out more of them below.
