Portia Munson « Muybridge's Horse

Portia Munson

I stumbled upon some of these images on Tumblr and of course, I was so attracted to them. This group of photographs is similar to the roadkill “memorial” photographs I’ve made and pet and wild animal “burial” pictures being made by other artists and floating around the internet, but what I love about this project is the total control that is allowed by making the setups on a scanner, and the intense darkness this setup adds to the pictures.

From the artist’s statement: I began creating flower images in 2002 after the death of a favorite person left me pondering the fleeting lives of flowers and people … Using the mandala, the circular form that in Eastern religions represents the universe, I meticulously arrange flowers from the garden into combinations of color and form that exaggerate the vibrancy of both … As with all my work, a closer look at the subject reveals hidden secrets – in this case, the flowers’ hairy, sticky, or poisonous parts; pollen; seeds; and the occasional insect. To make these mandala images, I use the scanner like a large-format camera. I lay flowers directly onto it, allowing pollen and other flower stuff to fall onto the glass and become part of the image. When the high-resolution scans are enlarged, amazing details and natural structures emerge. Every flower mandala is unique to a moment in time, represents what is in bloom on the day I made it.

An exhibition of Portia’s work, Reflecting Pool, is on view at P·P·O·W Gallery in New York through May 4, 2013.