Rosslynd Piggott

Rosslynd Piggott
Australian, born 1958; lives and works in Melbourne

Rose, rose and vapour window 2019
oil on linen
Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne

Artist statement:

Rose, rose and vapour window is part of an ongoing exploration of flowers as vaporized spaces. The paintings are literally observations of flowers: I have said, emphatically, when asked, ‘These are not abstract paintings, these are flower paintings’. I have observed their appearance: colour, characteristics of the petal, whether it be sturdy or paper-like, a fractured or a defined edge, the way the petal sways in the breeze or drops heavily to the ground, light that may pass through the petal and changes in these characteristics in the following hour or days.

With this work, I invite the viewer to enter into the very particle of rose, to breathe in the gradual fused colour, inhaling the scent across the petals. It is a call to follow, to enter inwards in a kind of floral rapture. I have further come to see these works as an act of resistance in an age of prevalent speed and excessive banality. These paintings call to a space where we might slow, pause and open our senses to a more vibrant pitch of our entire sensorium.