It has been a long time since I have written a blog, but here it is :)
Last blog, I talked about Kubota’s work on feminism. To continue the conversation on feminism and art, here is one more interesting artist that I have encountered when doing my artist research: Tiffanie Turner.
Café au Lait Dahlia, 2018
Formerly an architect, Turner is an American botanical sculptor known for her large, highly detailed, flower sculptures. Made of crepe paper, Turner's flowers are soft, gentle, and often, in full bloom. The blossoms are frozen in a precise time that may never be seen again, enlarged so that the subtle difference between the colour, texture, and folds of each petal can be admired. Her past works bring these small, often-overlooked, subjects in nature right to the viewer’s eyes.
Dutch Study II, 2017
Heavily influenced by Dutch Renaissance vanita artists, Turner made large studies of the flowers in still life paintings. Using crepe paper to create each petal, Turner made the flowers appear ethereal: especially with the cream hue, together, the flower petals appear as though they were the feathers of an angel.
Irregular Incurve Chrysanthemum, 2016
Turner was also interested in the subtle patterns in nature people often neglect. Here the Chrysanthemum’s curves continue into a swirling pattern, developing a sense of endless movement. As the title suggests, the irregular curve of the flower points to one of the wonders of nature’s products: errors. People often abase mistakes as a fault to be avoided, but Turner turns nature's mistakes into a subject of beauty.
In recent works, she has shifted to look more into the ideas of gender and femininity.
Specimen G (Prolapsed Rose), 2019
At first glance, I was captured by the work’s lively and almost sensual pink. Taking a closer look, the sculpture is a combination of a rose with a vagina, also indicated by the title “prolapsed rose”, where prolapse is a medical term for organs falling out of the vagina or the anus. The title “Specimen G” also reminds me of Wangechi Mutu’s medical diagrams.
Split Rose, 2020
Here again there is a combination of a rose with a vagina. The combination of two roses, one still in the midst of blooming and the other in full bloom and has developed into a vagina, speaks to the development of femininity and growth. Turner’s artistic and conceptual choice to connect flowers, especially roses, to vagina is very interesting because flowers are the reproductive structures in some plants, and vagina is part of the complex of reproductive organs in humans.
WAP, 2020
This one really stood out amongst the other flowers, not just because of its almost-neon, highly saturated, bold red, but also because of its title’s possible reference to the popular song by Cardi B. Red is often seen as a colour of violence, bloodshed, and sexiness. Is Turner trying to point out the violence committed against female sexuality in modern society or is trying to celebrate bold female sexual desire in the contemporary world?
Carnations (and other flowers), 2018
There are many female artists who use flowers as a metaphor for desire, femininity, and sex. Flowers seem to be a universal symbol that allows all people from all backgrounds to connect with. Flowers in artworks or as artworks immediately pulls the viewers in for a conservation or private pondering on beauty, sensuality, and humanity.
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