British artist Helen Ahpornsiri brings whole new meaning to botanical illustration with her incredible artwork made from pressed flowers and leaves. Her delicate compositions depict the diversity of the natural world, from mammals and birds to insects and sea creatures.
Using real flowers, petals, stems, and leaves, Ahpornsiri responsibly forages her materials from her own garden and local nature spots. Each botanical component is carefully chosen to celebrate its natural form, and in some works, the artist even uses specific components to correspond with her subject’s natural habitat. In one piece, a seahorse is crafted from tiny pieces of red marine algae, and in another, a majestic blue whale is made entirely from pressed seaweed. “The marine algae I use is foraged from beaches on the south coast of England,” Ahpornsiri reveals. “I search for loose pieces of marine algae along strandlines and in rockpools, especially after stormy seas, to avoid being disruptive to the surrounding ecosystem.”
As organizations are shuttered indefinitely due to ongoing coronavirus embargoes, more and more institutions seem to be taking steps to make their collections accessible and explorable by virtual means. Whether this is due to the altruistic aspect of art that seeks to bring meaning to life during troubled times, or the ways in which the disruption of business-as-usual has enabled many of us to get into the “deep cuts” of our to-do lists, the result is an abundance of truly beautiful online resources to delight and divert us during self-quarantine efforts. Recent among these, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries announced a new addition to “OPenn” — the Manuscripts of the Muslim World project.
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