Artists, photographers and poets have been inspired by the beauty of flowers for centuries, and these life-affirming natural phenomena have inspired an epic multi-media at London’s Saatchi Gallery. FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE pays homage to the enduring popularity of flowers and presents over 500 artworks by 150 artists, ranging from emerging to established, working in a wide variety of disciplines from painting to photography, fashion to jewellery, installation to video art.
This unmissable exhibition takes over two floors and nine gallery spaces of the vast Saatchi Gallery on London’s iconic Kings Road in Chelsea, home of the enduringly popular Chelsea Flower Show, and offers a deep dive into the enduring influence of flowers on a wide variety of art forms.
Highlights (and there are many) include Journey of Progress, a vast floral mural by Sophie Mess which greets visitors to the exhibition and sets the precedent for the joyful journey through floral art, and beautiful textile wall sculpture by Anne von Freyburg (who has been given her own solo exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery), Jo Grogan’s Best Chair featuring ceramic tulips, and Rob and Nick Carter’s sculptural bronze tribute to Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and video work Transforming Flowers in a Vase (2016). Fashion and jewellery highlights include floral-inspired fashion with a punk twist by Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood, rare Orchid and Daisy jewellery by Mario and Gianmaria Buccellati, and an haute couture Daniel Roseberry for Schiaperelli’s 2024 wedding dress garnished in three-dimensional hand-painted leather flowers.
The sheer variety of medium featured in the exhibition is astonishing, and as well as painting, sculpture, fashion, jewellery, installation and photography, there is tattoo art by Daniel the Gardener, who creates bespoke tattoo designs for his clients inspired by their relationships with plants and a digital projection space featuring interactive flower-inspired video art from pioneering French artist Miguel Chevalier.
The pièce de résistance of the exhibition is Rebecca Louise Law’s breathtaking installation of over 100,000 dried flowers– La Fleur Morte (2025)– which was created through workshops with people from the local community. Upon entering the gallery dedicated to Law’s artwork, you experience a sensory overload created by the heady scent of the flowers including Chamomile.
Law says: ‘Using the dead flower as my sculptural material has enabled me to explore our capitalist culture and our insatiable appetite for more. I began collecting flowers in 2003 with waste flowers from the commercial flower industry. As well as this resource, many flowers in my archive have been donated from gardens all over the world and today I grow my own. I never throw any flowers away and I collect the floral dust that falls while I install. Valuing what the earth provides us, is paramount in my works ethos’.
Co-curators Katherine Benson and Rosie Grant have created an epic visual and sensory homage to flowers and their power to elevate our mood through the arts, cleverly dividing the exhibition into themed sections –Roots, In Bloom, Flowers and Fashion, Science: Life & Death and New Shoots – each exploring different creative themes through a wide variety of media.
Aside from studies of their inherent beauty and drama, flowers are also utilised as symbols, signifiers or metaphors for human emotions and impulses. Flora lies at the heart of myths and stories that inform our cultural outlook and language. Recognised as unparalleled objects of beauty in nature, artists continue to evoke the power and beauty of flora to convey a multitude of messages and meanings.
Curatorially, sections of the exhibition involve collaborations with institutions and designers such as Marimekko. The project partner for a presentation of photographic works from Flora Imaginaria, curated by Danaé Panchaud and William Ewing, is the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography (FEP).
Featured artists include: Cristina Alcantara, Pedro Almodóvar, Nobuyoshi Araki, Nick Archer, Gillian Ayres, Jessica Backhaus, Mandy Barker, Brendan Barry, Susan Beech, Valérie Belin, Andy Bettles, Elizabeth Blackadder, John Blakemore, Jean Baptiste Bosschaert, Faye Bridgwater, Orlanda Broom, Buccellati, Olga Cafiero, Ann Carrington, Rob & Nick Carter, Miguel Chevalier, Christo, Philip Colbert, Lottie Cole, Stephanie Comilang, Sharon Core, Michael Craig-Martin, Reuben Dangoor, Lia Darjes, William Darrell, Tom de Houwer, Richard de Tscharner, Elspeth Diederix, Jim Dine, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Ron van Dongen, Xuebing Du, Elaine Duigenan, Pamela Ellis Hawkes, Ruud van Empel, Joanna Epstein, Mary Fedden, Robert Frank, Anne von Freyburg, Erwan Frotin, Adam Fuss, Matthieu Gafsou, Kate Gibb, Grace Gillespie, Sky Glabush, Daniel Gordon, Maro Gorky, Roberto Greco, Jo Grogan, Anna Halm Schudel, Joanna Ham, Rose Electra Harris, Dan Hays, George Henry, Realf Heygate, Damien Hirst, Aimée Hoving, Gary Hume, Florence Hutchings, Mila Ilingina, Yinka Ilori, Michelle Jung, Nadav Kander, Heath Kane, Sandra Kantanen, Alex Katz, Neil Kellerhouse, Rob Kesseler, Nick Knight, Kior Ko, Jan Sebastian Koch, Irene Küng, Yayoi Kusama, Wole Lagunju, Caroline Larsen, Rebecca Louise Law, David Lebe, Laura Letinsky, Kathrin Linkersdorff, Brigitte Lustenberger, Mari Mahr, Martin Maloney, Ann Mandelbaum, Tony Matelli, Margaret Mellis, Sophie Mess, Ally McIntyre, Anastasija Michailova, Andrew Millar, Banita Mistry, Carmen Mitrotta, Abelardo Morell, William Morris, Alphonse Mucha, Vik Muniz, Galina Munroe, Takashi Murakami, Winifred Nicholson, Jesse Pollock, Janet Pulcho, Stormy Pyeatte, Marc Quinn, Dan Rawlings, Marcel Rickli, Catriona Robertson, Almudena Romero, Paul Rousteau, Andrew Salgado, Frederick Sander, Viviane Sassen, Thirza Schaap, Schiaparelli, Helene Schmitz, Martin Schoeller, Megan Seiter, Amy Shelton, Ann Shelton, David Shrigley, Niki Simpson, Chieska Smith, Paul Anthony Smith, Leonard “Soldier” Iheagwam, Rudolf Steiner, Holly Stevenson, Florent Stosskopf, Daniel The Gardener, Rebecca Thomas, Mimei Thompson, Miriam Tölke, VOYDER, Robert Walker, Tim Walker, Tom Wesselmann, Vivienne Westwood, Jo Whaley, Jess Wilson, Emma Witter, Kasia Wozniak, Nadirah Zakariya, Christina Zimpel, Victoria Zschommler, Andrew Zuckerman.
FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE is at Saatchi Gallery, London until 5th May, 2025.
