Human Flower Project
Flemish Master, with a Scanner
With an optical scanner and ink-jet printing, artist Katinka Matson rivals the Baroque still life painters.
from “Forty Flowers,” Katinka Matson
Katinka Matson’s floral art is stunning, and too close for comfort. Created with a scanner’s “digital retina,” as critic Kevin Kelly puts it, Matson manages an overall detail comparable to the Baroque painters of Belgium and the Netherlands. And like those artists, Matson is clearly driving at something beyond horticultural accuracy.
These aquamarine tulips and their silver-blue foliage look to me like worn ballet shoes, showing that beauty is an endeavor, that even satin grows tired.
Peony
from “Forty Flowers”
Katinka Matson
Others of her flowers, like this single peony, possess a portentous gloom, white hovering over black, reminiscent of Zurbaran.
Many thanks again to the University of British Columbia Botanical Gardens site for bringing this artist to our attention. We hope to alert HFP to exhibitions of her work later this year.
And here’s a link to enough Baroque still life painters to overwhelm a grey day anywhere.