Flower Drama, Sofya Mikhaylova

This publication is a floral fantasy by a visual artist. Anthropomorphising the flower and using the metaphor of a petal being pulled from a flower and floating away is an exploration of self-discovery. The project began with a written story, which is included in the booklet, documenting an imaginary world of flowers and informing the visual narrative.

The Christian symbols and the afterlife references are fused into the derelict, gate-closed space in the city where nature takes over the abject. The transient space speaks about the eternity and continuous cycle of life and death, fixating on the specific season of springtime. This contrast juxtaposes focusing on yourself/being yourself with actively observing parts that may become yourself, categorised stages of decayed 'floors' made from the dead flowers, awaiting its time to develop critical knowledge. 

Beauty is frequently associated with flowers, and the English word 'beauty' was first applied to women. The project was led to take a 3D form, mutating its theme towards desire and sexualities. These themes are deeply connected to beauty and require disconnection from the host to explore discovery of sexualities. 

Identifying beauty through comparison of women to treasured photographs, paintings, or sculptures of women, unlocked drawings into fantasy and vanity of a particular world. And separated sculptural element of the work into objects of desire, grounding themselves on the poetic method: 'blazon', which frequently used physical materials to describe female beauty. 

This body of work was presented at Sleeping Fury, a two-person exhibition by Sofya Mikhaylova with Sadbh O’Brien, who also explores themes of femininity, mythology, and ecology. This booklet was part of the exhibition, that connected the beginning of the project with work that took on new themes.

Self Published
Softcover
12 pages
295 x 207 mm