 This year the Society of Botanical Artists have opted to have an ONLINE EXHIBITION in place of an annual exhibition in a gallery. This post is about how you can see it - by thumbnail, artwork or artist! ABOUT PLANTAE 2024Plantae 2024 is now available to view online - until 30th June 2024. To view the artworks you need to click the link in the TOP RIGHT HAND CORNER of the website. I found it takes rather a long time to load - but that's doubtless due to the very many images of artwork which you can see online! You have the option to:
You can also view the artworks created by the students and graduates of our Distance Learning Diploma Course - on a completely seperate page on this link DLDC Plantae Gallery 2024 If you are interested in purchasing any of the artwork on display, you need to contact the artist direct via the "Enquire about this artwork" button. Note that there are variations in what's on offer:
 Thumbnail images of some of the artwork being exhibited in SBA Plantae 2024 Participating ArtistsThe names of the participating artists are listed below - in alphabetic order of their (last) surname. I've taken the liberty of changing the order of some of the names (currently out of sync with the alphabetical order) so they can be found more easily You will see that:
PLUS I've spotted a number of names of artists who are participating in this year's RHS Show which opens next week (see my last post Artists exhibiting at the RHS Botanical Art Show 2024) A
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Just a reminder that the deadline for the Distance Learning Diploma in Botanical Art offered by the Society of Botanical Artists is TOMORROW 30th September 2023.  Course 21 will commence in January 2024.
You can also read about some of the DLDC assignments that students did in the past to get a sense of what's involved from a student perspective - on my page dedicated to Society of Botanical Art Diploma Course - commentary via blog posts HOW TO DECIDE ON THE BEST COURSE FOR YOU You can also check out alternative options for studying via a Diploma or Certificate on my page about Diploma and Certificate Courses in Botanical Art & Illustration in 2022-23 - which I will be updating in the near future. This also includes a LOT of questions that I recommend every student should ask before making a decision as to which is the best course for them as an individual. [PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME WITH INFORMATION ABOUT ANY NEW DIPLOMAS OR CERTIFICATES - please use the form at the bottom of the page to provide:
This post covers:
Botanical Art Worldwide - Basic Principles  The second Botanical Art Worldwide Project will focus on and celebrate biodiversity in the crops that have been closely associated with the human species over thousands of years. The theme is designed to draw attention to the vast variety of food and useful plants available, in contrast with the relatively few varieties currently used in mass cultivation. Plants eligible for inclusion are those cultivated for food, textiles, building, energy, and medicine BAW Central Guidelines The theme of the Exhibition in 2025 is "Crop Diversity". Eligible subject matter covers:
Every country needs to comply with the central guidelines which will be produced by the Steering Committee for Botanical Art Worldwide. These central guidelines has not yet been fully finalised - and hence not yet formalised and published . However these are coming soon and will be prominent on the Botanical Art Worldwide website when available. BAW International Exhibition The International Exhibition is going to be digital/virtual and will be available online to everybody around the world and remain on view during May 2025. (To be honest, I've always thought that the point of going digital is you can remain online - as indeed all the historical art does in the various collections / major projects relating to past botanical artwork and illustrations. Maybe it's an issue of expense? There again YouTube is forever if you so choose.) Overall Goals Artists around the world are working on this project to: Components of the BAW Project 2025 BASIC PRINCIPLES of how it will work in every country - as agreed by the Steering Committee.
Participating Countries If your botanical art organisation / botanical garden / museum wants to participate - and your country is not already participating (see list below) - you should
The following are all the participating countries - to date. I expect more will join.
You can see everything that happened around the world on one page on my website - see ARCHIVE: World Wide Exhibition of Botanical Art 2018. It includes a number of images and videos. I will be setting up a similar page for Botanical Art Worldwide 2025 on this website very soon. Country Guidelines / Exhibition Each participating country has a Steering Committee who are organising the country contribution to the International Exhibition.
Within their own country, each country can choose to have as many artworks as they like in a physical exhibition in the country - depending on the space available. Each country can organise additional lectures, webinars, workshops, demonstrations, and other public programming - during the dates agreed for the opening and closing of the exhibition in that country. Botanical Art Worldwide in the UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland)In the UK the contribution to Botanical Art Worldwide is SPLIT - as it was in 2018 - between:
Below you can find out more about
This is about the Certificates of Botanical Merit awarded to artists exhibiting at the Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition - Plantae 2023 - at the Mall Galleries this week Below you can find:
 One of two Certificates of Botanical Merit awarded to Eunhee Park SBA Fellow at Plantae 2023 - this one is for her Artichoke The SBA Certificates of Botanical MeritUnlike some other botanical art exhibitions such as the RHS botanical art shows, the Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition has traditionally not been a "strictly botanical" show. This is because the SBA's founder Suzanne Lucas MBE FLS HPRMS PPRMS FPSBA HonSWA HSF BMS (1915-2008) believed very strongly that the portrayal of plants need not always be highly scientific and illustrative - as many flower painters would agree. “To incorporate more recent techniques and styles in a broader interpretation; combining the scientific and representational, giving a rich and varied view of the wonderful world of plants.” However, since the SBA was founded, there has been a gradual move towards a much greater emphasis on 'botanical art' and the current exhibition is less about 'flower painting'. This has no doubt been influenced by the development and promotion of the knowledge and skills imparted via the SBA's very popular Distance Learning Diploma Course in Botanical Art which a major innovation in botanical art education when it started. As a result, the SBA created the award of a "Certificate of Botanical Merit" in order to:
 Examples of the coursework by recent graduates of the SBA Distance Learning Diploma Course are on display within Plantae 2023 The selection processRecipients of a Certificate of Botanical Merit are ALWAYS selected every year by a wholly independent Judge who is well qualified in terms of their botanical / horticultural knowledge. In recent years that person has been Lucy T. Smith GM BVA MVA
 Lucy T. Smith with her painting of the Victoria amazonica leaf - photographed at "The Wonderful World of Water Plants" Exhibition at Kew (2023) The Certificates of Botanical Merit in 2023Below artists are listed in alphabetical order of their surname - with the image of the artwork getting a Certificate of Botanical Art above and a profile of the artist below. Links in the artist's name go to their website.  Autumn Hedgerow (51) by Christina Hart Davies The Exhibiting Excellence Awards at the Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Exhibition were introduced by SBA Council to highlight
Below I provide:
I've chosen an image below for the Introduction of the two artworks which got an award for Exhibiting Excellent in Dry Media (Graphite) - hung next to one another.
 Two Botanical Drawings in Graphite received Exhibiting Excellence Awards - one by a first time exhibitor and one by a long time member Plantae 2023 Exhibiting Excellence Awards The EXHIBITING EXCELLENCE at Plantae 2023 cover a variety of differentiating factors:
The numbers after the title of the artwork below refer to the number in the Catalogue for Plantae 2023. Exhibiting Excellence: Colour & CompositionThere were two awards for colour and one for composition.  EXHIBITING EXCELLENCE: Canna Lily (102) by Janice Gazetas Inspiring Use of Colour Canna Lily (102) by Janice Gazetas (watercolour on paper) Janice Gazetas BSc (hons) PGCE SBA Fellow has always loved drawing and painting. Born in 1951 and brought up in Lincolnshire. She studied Botany and Zoology at University before training to be a teacher. She has worked as a Research Scientist and after having two children, trained as a teacher. got her PGCE and specialising as a science teacher in a Primary School. Like many, she returned to painting only after she retired. She became a Fellow of the SBA in 2019. I am interested in the complex and unexpected, both in structure and colour. She has exhibited previously with the Society of Botanical Artists, the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, Society of Women Artists in the UK and the Botanical Art Agency Of Korea in Korea.
What I liked about her Canna is that it very much reminded me of those that I enjoy in the tropical Garden at Great Dixter which is a real challenge to walk through once they're full on in midsummer with the leaves twisting and turning. Her botanical paintings are typically complex, bright and intense. However, I found one of her other paintings in the exhibition - a close cropped view of eucalyptus trees - caught my eye every time I walked past and insisted I looked at it - and yet this was relatively subdued compared to her normal botanical paintings.  Yesterday I visited Plantae 2023 - the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists at the Mall Galleries to view the exhibition and to choose the winner of award I sponsor. I'll be going back tomorrow - when it will hopefully be a little less crowded - to review again the artwork and the winners of various awards and Certificates of Botanical Merit. There will then be three more posts after this one focusing on:
I'll be focusing in this review on:
Here are the headlines for WHAT'S CHANGED
I'll also be highlighting throughout what I particularly noticed which won't get a mention in other posts. I'm also going to be uploading photos I took yesterday to my BA&A Facebook Page once this review has been published - and I'll include links here once that's been done. (Now included below) What's different about Plantae 2023?
This is an interview with Ines-Hermione Mulford who last summer won the first Making A Mark Award for Botanical Art at Plantae 2022 - the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists (see Plantae 2022 - and a new Award and The Making A Mark Award for Botanical Art)
Part of the award is an interview as a blog post about her artwork. Next week Plantae 2023 opens at the Mall Galleries in London and I'll be on the lookout for the next winner! The interview with Ines-Hermione covers:
"Holdfast" by Ines-Hermione Mulford - 30x31cm pencil drawing on recycled paper - selected for Plantae 2023
I determined that the criteria for the award is that the winner needed to be somebody who fulfilled one or more of the following
I knew I'd picked somebody with an unusual perspective on how to represent plants - which is why she won the award. What I didn't appreciate at the time was quite how unusual that perspective is! Last time I saw the painting below it was hanging on the wall in Plantae 2022 in the Mall Galleries. In the Autumn of 2023 it's going to form part of a Bryophyte and Lichen Trail in the Dundee Botanic Garden! 
Dwindling by Ines-Hermione Mulford - in a forest
About the artist: Ines-Hermione Mulford
​Tell me about yourself. How did you get into art and why are you an artist? ​I have always been creative, something nurtured by my granny with many summer holidays painting flowers in her garden in Devon from a young age, but I was also very interested in science. When I discovered the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, I think I must have been about 9, It felt like a lightbulb moment. I wanted to be him! I wanted to paint in a way that mimicked reality, I wanted to design, engineer, study science. But growing up it became obvious that past 16 this wasn’t really an option. Choosing my A-levels, and on from that university, meant I had to choose either the arts or the sciences. Something that didn’t make sense to me, and to be very honest, I still don’t get it, in fact I vehemently oppose strict boundaries of learning and wish we were far more interdisciplinary. Ultimately, I chose art as it was what excited me the most and is largely due to my secondary school art teacher who was an absolute hero. Unsurprisingly I found my practice routed again, and again, in the sciences and I think my career has been very linear, albeit unconventional, since. At Art school, Edinburgh College of Art, I found my love of classical realism, and chose the anatomy elective which was linked with the medical school there and through that found a love of medicine, that led me to surgical and medical art which is a huge part of my practice now. I started shadowing surgeons in 2015 where I felt an affinity with their desire, and need, for highly skilled, craft-based work. I am still doing this work today, and actually went back to university to do a Masters in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh to ensure that my research was ethical, something that was invaluable as I have just completed a residency with the Surgeon’s Hall Museum in Edinburgh, producing paintings on the human relationship between surgeon, robot and patient in robotic surgery. ​ Social Anthropology has been instrumental to developing my career as an artist as both are a looking at and a living with the world around us. They are explorations of the lived experience and the expression of humanity, the natural world and life as we know it. They are both disciplines where subjectivity and personal experience are celebrated. A lot of my practice as an artist is project based, which feeds that desire in me to learn, and I’m currently working on two projects, one with Breast Cancer Now, a charity based in London where I am exploring the organisation as a holistic support system; the other is with the University College Dublin teaching hospital Mater Mericordial, visualising their pioneering research in digital biopsies of cancer diagnosis. But it was the robotic surgery which led my personal practice back to the wonderful world of flora. Seeing the human body through the eyes/lens of the da vinci robot, on a macro level, made me completely rethink how I situate myself in the world. The almost abstract landscape, this alien world that was so foreign and yet part of us, was bizarre yet stunning. I began to notice similarities texture and, after further research, function, to the mosses and lichens that have fascinated me all my life. ​ For me it has felt very linear, figurative art and realism drove me to study anatomy, which developed my understanding of the human body, leading me to surgery and medicine, the human body, our flesh, functions etc. which led me onto the natural world, its fascinating structures, functions, beauty and our undeniable dependence on it. My practice is interdisciplinary as I feel that art has the ability to be boundary-less, and is all the more successful for it. About drawing and painting plants
Dwindling by Inês-Hermione Mulford (Wooly fringe moss with highland granite and lichen Oil on 120x120cm Backed Board
How has your experience in drawing and painting people helped you in drawing and painting plants?
Ooft difficult question! I learnt a lot through painting and drawing people, the skill-based side, so the honed skills of observation and retention, while my background in anatomy helped me to really understand what I was looking at, and not just make things up!
In an “artier†sense I suppose, I see drawing as an encounter with something. I actually ended up writing my dissertation for my masters on how drawing in the field aids social research. Drawing is a form of active looking that, each line leads you to see, it is the product of an encounter, while also being an encounter itself. You are in conversation with what is being observed. Whether that is a literal conversation with an individual, or metaphorical! It is the combination of learning about the anatomy of something, in this instance taking time to really research the structure of the mosses, and then also be led by what you are actually seeing; that engagement is so important and the process of drawing itself. What do you find appealing about drawing plants generally? |
Botanical Art & Artists
WINTER 2023
AuthorKatherine Tyrrell writes about botanical art and artists and has followers all over the world. You can also find her at linktr.ee BAA Visitors so far....Subscribe to BAA NewsBlog posts are emailed to you when you SUBSCRIBE to "Botanical Art and Artists - News" by Email
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