Leonard Schlichting
PapaverTiger Lily with CicadaHyacinth Bean Yellow Rose with MothFern & FriendsAdmiral Bougainvillea Bougainvillea with PhalaenopsisRosae StelleMoth Orchid with Dragonfly Fungi and Cruciferae LeafStaghorn Sumac and Yellow LeafDatura with painted lady beetle and other insectsSunflower with zinniasRose Petals and HipsGeranium and Mexican FlowerBlack Locust and LilyOrchidaceaeSchlumbergera and Phalaeonopsis
Bouquets Mourants
A series of prints from botanical scans that reflect my deep lifelong interest in the intricacies, textures, and myriad forms that nature takes in the ongoing push to flower, to attract pollinating insects, and to bear fruit.

They are gleanings, a celebration of the after bloom, the transition stage, the husk, the seed pod, the flower spent but still suffused with beauty, a testament to their time of fertility.

It was a process of gathering; many things came from my backyard garden, and assemblage on the scanner bed. I was keenly aware while working on these botanical collages that there is a language of flowers, and that putting them together was not unlike writing a poem.

"Où des bouquets mourants dans leurs cercueils de verre exhalent leur soupir final."

"Where dying bouquets in their glass coffins exhale their final sigh."

-- an excerpt from Une Martyre, Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire