Lover’s Eye
This painting updates the historical Georgian concept of the "Lover’s Eye", miniature eye portraits gifted in secret to loved ones by nesting the gaze within a softly painted pink pansy. Derived from the French word pensée (meaning "thought"), the pansy traditionally symbolises remembrance, loving thoughts, and deep affection.
The open, gentle blue eye acts as the focal point, gazing out from a dreamy, soft toned background. To bridge the human element with the botanical, I hand applied a textured frame of glass seed beads. The delicate pink and pearlescent beads cluster and cascade from the center, mimicking natural floral stamen or spilling pollen while adding a beautiful three dimensional quality to the canvas.
This is a small painting 25 x 20 cm.
Emotion Collection
An emotion series in six parts
The Victorians had their own secret language: floriography, where every flower carried a hidden message.
In this series of six small paintings I will explore emotions with the language of flowers. The collection will include:
Lover’s Eye: Pansy, for affection and thoughts of you
Yellow Hyacinth: for envy
Bleeding Heart: for grief and heartache
Red Camellia: for longing and devotion
Snowdrop: for hope and new beginnings
Forget me nots: for sweet memories
Envy
The second painting in the emotion series “Envy’, a six part collection pairing feelings with flowers from the Victorian language of flowers.
At the centre, a bright green eye peers out from an antique hand mirror. The yellow hyacinth represents envy in Victorian floriography as does the twisted bramble which curls up the painting with sharp little hooks and a couple of pink blooms.
The bold orange background and complementary green eye brings the “green with envy” idea to life. Pretty on the surface, uneasy underneath. Envy is a difficult emotion to process.
Painting size is 25 × 20 cm.
