While creating his Exploded Flowers series, it occurred to artist Qi Wei “that petals and individual components of flowers are literally individual brush-strokes of nature.”
Going along with that idea, he's created these beautiful floral paintings which are inspired by famous masterpieces themselves.
Above: “This piece is inspired byThe Great Wave off Kanagawa (??????), one of the most recognizable Japanese artwork. I find that I can create the sensation of movement well with the physical arrangement of the petals, but the use of floral pieces somehow makes this piece more gentle.”
Roses, Pom Poms, Hydrangeas, Heliconias, All Rights Reserved
“This work is all about textures, and takes its inspiration from a traditional Japanese painting of a crane by Jakuchu. It is not a painting or drawing! Every single piece in this work comes from the flowers stated in the title, and is a photographic image which is of course post processed.
What I find interesting is that from far it resembles a traditional Japanese painting, probably because of the colours and the textures arising from the petals. Also of note is how much flower petals resemble feathers – just seems to work well in this case for me.”
Van Gogh Sunflower Remix, All Rights Reserved
“To start with, I decided to remix Van Gogh's famous Sunflower Painting – remixing a painting of flowers with flowers has a meta-painting quality to it that I like!
“This work was done entirely by hand, and I had to work fast too as I didn't want the petals to wilt before the entire work was done! Thankfully, I had the help of my family in this particular instance.
“Another interesting quality of this image are the dimensions that are present – the textures of the wall, vase and table created by petals give a dimension not usually present in drawings, and the real sunflowers add an increased dimension to the whole piece.”
Just lovely.
