SBA's Plantae 2023: Certificates of Botanical Merit

​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:

• why the Society of Botanical Artists awards Certificates of Botanical Excellence. 
• how artworks are selected
• the list of those receiving a Certificate of Botanical Art in 2023 in alphabetical order of the artists' surnames plus:
  
  • an image of the artwork and
    
  • a brief profile of the artist who produced it
    
  • links to websites or other related sites are embedded in the name

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 Merit

Unlike 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.”
Suzanne Lucas, Founder President 1915 – 2008

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:

• highlight the importance of drawings and paintings which are created in a botanical style - including some which observe the very precise niceties of scientific botanical illustration
• for those botanical artworks in the exhibition which are particularly noteworthy in this respect.

Examples of the coursework by recent graduates of the SBA Distance Learning Diploma Course are on display within Plantae 2023

​The selection process

Recipients 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 is a very experienced and multi award-winning professional botanical illustrator who produces botanical illustrations for publication by the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. Her work has been published in numerous scientific publications. 
• She has won BOTH
  • the very prestigious Margaret Flockton Award in 2014 and 2017 (see Second Margaret Flockton Award win for Lucy T. Smith) and
  • the Jill Smythies Award for Botanical Illustration, awarded by the Linnean Society of London in 2004 .
• She also works as a botanical art tutor at Kew and elsewhere.​

When judging the artwork for CBMs, Lucy is not looking for a presentation along the lines of a strict scientific botanical illustration brief. Rather she's looking for whether an image fulfils the brief of describing the plant accurately and well.​

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 2023

Below 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

​(51)  Autumn Hedgerow by Christina Hart-Davies GM (1984, 1986, 1988, 1992, 2018) SBAF
(Watercolour)

Christina Hart-Davies has been a professional botanical artist for 40+ years. Her degree was Typography and Graphic Communication and she worked for many years on the development of educational books.

• She has been awarded five RHS Gold Medals (4 for mosses and lichens and one for orchids).
• She was a Founder Member and Honorary Secretary, for the first ten years, of the Society of Botanical Artists. ​
• Her work is in various collections of RBG Kew, Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, the RHS and Shirley Sherwood - and mine (I have two of her paintings!). 
• She has illustrated extensively for a wide variety of prestigious clients and gone on expeditions to produce illustrations eg to the forests of Sumatra!
• She has illustrated or contributed illustrations to a wide variety of books about plants including Collins Wild Flower Guide and a number of other publications. ​

She is also the author and Illustrator of a number of recent publications

• The Whole Story (2020)
• 'The Greenwood Trees - History, Folklore and uses of Britain's trees' (2018)
• A Wild Plant Year (2016) 

and is currently working on an informal history of medicinal plants.

(53)  Handkerchief Tree (Davidia involucrata) by Sandra Doyle CBM

Sandra Doyle is a professional natural history illustrator and has been illustrating the natural world for over 30 years. Using watercolour, ink & coloured pencils she has provided artwork for many natural history publications, including those from Princeton University Press, Oxford University Press, Dorling Kindersley, Bloomsbury & New Holland. Her paintings have also been selected for numerous and diverse art exhibitions and won a number of awards.

In the past her SBA Awards have included: 

• the 'People's Choice Award - after the votes were counted following the close of the Society of Botanical Artist's Annual Exhibition in 2017.
• A CBM for her Ficus carica’ White Marseilles (Cardinal Pole’s White Fig) - which grows in the garden of Lambeth Palace - in
• A CBM for Fading Away, Veteran Beech in Epping Forest (2022)

You can also read about her work in my blog post about Recording Ancient and Heritage Trees (2017)

(58) Firewheel (Strenocarpus sinuatus) by Melinda Edstein SBAF

Melinda Edstein also won an Exhibiting Excellence Award for Use of Dry Media (Coloured Pencils)

Melinda grew up in Sydney with a keen interest in nature, science, and art. In 1982, she graduated from Sydney University in 1982 with a first class Honours degree in Veterinary Science. She then worked for many years as a small animal vet - and also married and raised raising four children. Finally she decided to pursue her interest in art.

• In 2008 she began classes at the RBG Sydney and discovered a love of coloured pencils.
• in 2010 she started exhibiting at RBG Sydney Botanica annual exhibition and has also had works in the Art of Botanical Illustration in Melbourne, the Canberra Botanical, the SBA Exhibition in London, and Botanical Art Worldwide.
• Finally she decided to pursue more structured studies, signed on for the SBA's Distance Learning Diploma Course and graduated - with distinction in 2017!
• She exhibited in the Hunt’s 16th International Exhibition in 2019.
  

 (107) Zea mays 'Glass Gem' by Alexandra Gorchakova SBAF
(watercolour)

Alexandra Gorchakova was born in 1990 in Yaroslavl (in Russia) and worked as a structural steel engineer. In 2014 she started at art school, as a hobby, and in 2018 she started to paint botanical subjects in watercolour after following Svetlana Lanse’s course. She is now a full-time botanical artist, living in Hungary.

She is a Member of the Russian Botanical Artists Society (SABA) since 2020 and an SBA fellow since 2023. She has exhibited in Russia, Germany and Hungary.

 (156) Carica papaya 'Maradol' by Nichole Kazmar
(watercolour)

I have no information about Nichole Kazmar. Can anybody help?

Artichoke by Eunhee Park (coloured pencil)

Crataegus viridis 'Winter King' by Eunhee Lark (coloured pencil)

Eunhee Park has the distinction in Plantae 2023 of being awarded two Certificates of Botanical Art for both of her artworks which were selected for hanging in the exhibition.

• (244) Artichoke (coloured pencil)
• (245 ) Crataegus viridis 'Winter King' (coloured pencil)

Eunhee Park is a Fellow of SBA. She completed the SBA Diploma Course 15.  Her inspiration for works in coloured pencil was Ann Swan.

(250) Blackcurrants by Dorte Pedersen 
(Graphite and colour pencils)

Lives in Oslo. Started her working life as a graphic designer but now works on a self-employed basis as a special effects designer with film companies.

(347) Passiflora caerulea by Julie Whelan SBAF
(watercolour)

Julie Whelan was born and educated in West Yorkshire and moved to London for a career working in the care profession with sick children. She has had a couple of major health challenges which have proved disruptive to both her career and her studies to redirect her efforts into botanical art - but she has pulled through and maintained a positive outlook throughout. Julie finds that her artwork certainly helps her escape from health issues; escapism to a safe place.

• 2012 - she graduated from the SBA DLDC with a credit
  
• 2015 - she was accepted to exhibit with the RHS
  
• 2016 - she was elected to full membership of the SBA and won the Margaret Granger Memorial Silver Bowl at the Annual Exhibition.
  
• 2022 - she won a SIlver-Gilt medal at the RHS show for her series of Passiflora paintings

Hellebore Collection (351) by Sue J Williams

352 Hellebore Collection by Sue J Williams GM (2008) SBAF
(watercolour)

Sue J Williams now lives in Yalding in Kent but was born in Pakistan, trained as a teacher of Modern Languages and has led a very international life and spent most of her life travelling. However in later years she became interested in botanical art and, since 1994, has been creating botanical paintings and has exhibited widely and every year with SBA.

• In 2008 she was awarded an RHS Gold Medal for paintings of Begonias
• Painted the flowering trees and plants in Zimbabwe for the National Botanic Gardens.
• In 2000, she was commissioned to produce stamp designs for the Pitcairn Islands while living in New Zealand.
• Exhibited 25 paintings in a joint exhibition with Sue Wickison called “Black and White, in Colour”, at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew, in 2013/4. (See "Black and White in colour at Kew")
• Fellow of the Society of Botanical Artists and the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society.
• She has work in the collections of Dr Shirley Sherwood, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Chelsea Physic Garden, the RHS Lindley Library, as well as the Isaac Sutton Collection and Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in the USA.​

Tomorrow the blog post will be about
the SBA and Sponsor Awards at the Plantae 2023 Exhibition 

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