This post is another in my ongoing series of introductions to some of the creative people who make the Central West End such an interesting place to live. Meet Barbara Elliott Martin, above, a nationally-recognized photographer whose early work concentrated on landmark architectural and interior images. Starting as a black and white photographer, she honed her skills in countless hours of archival printing in the darkroom. According to Barbara, "this skill and the spontaneity of the creative process formed the foundation" for her stunning exhibition, Orchids Reimagined, which opened at the Missouri Botanical Garden last Friday. The exhibition will be hanging in the Ridgway Visitors Center until March 7.
On a personal note Barbara and I have been good friends for as many years as we’ve lived in the neighborhood, i.e. a long time. We've worked together too when she was the executive editor of Mary Engelbreit’s late, great Home Companion Magazine, and I was the food editor.
I took photographs of Orchids Reimagined earlier this week when a few us met Barbara for a personal tour of the exhibition. (It's quite intimidating to take pictures of a photographer's work. I've indicated beneath the photos which are Barbara's, though it won't be hard for you to tell.)
Photo courtesy of Barbara Elliot Martin
In her own words, here is where Barbara found her inspiration: While walking the Flower Market in Hong Kong, I discovered a number of exquisite orchids arranged bare root on aged boards. I reacted as if they were a personal Rorschach test. What did I really see?
Returning to my studio, the photographs taken that day were loaded on to my computer. Indebted to nature but now freed from it by 21st century digital platforms, the orchids which laid placidly in my photo frame morphed into illusionary birds. The answer to the question posed in the humid stalls of Hong Kong's flower district began to form.
Barbara continues: Early botanical artists were bound to reality because their creations were also documents serving as objective scientific observations, but art liberates us from the literal and privileges the imagination over rude reality.
Barbara used pigmented ink on cotton rag paper for her exquisite images which are totally fabricated from her imagination. She spent many hours photographing orchids at the Garden, and then dowloaded the photographs to her computer where she took them apart and reassembled them to create her illusionary birds (prints are 40 x 40" or 48 x 48"). They are so beautiful and imaginative that I hope you will take time to visit the Garden so you can study her extraordinary work up close.
Lost Daydreams 8, above.
The creases in the work make some of the pieces look like beautiful silk scarves.
photo courtesy of Barbara Elliott Martin
Barbara sent along the photograph of her reimagined African Crown Birds, above. This exquisite piece is not in the exhibition at the Garden, but is available. For more information, contact Barbara at [email protected].
The Orchid Show at the Botanical Garden opens February 1 until March 23. Barbara Elliott Martin's Orchids Reimagined closes March 7, 4344 Shaw Blvd.
Yes Vicki: [email protected]
are prints available for purchase of the reimagined orchids?