The garments we wear often hold stories about our lives. A hole in the knee of a well-loved pair of jeans recalls hours spent bent down to tend to a vegetable garden, while a greasy oil stain condemns a T-shirt once worn to a family barbeque.

For Elodie Blanchard, textiles hold boundless narrative potential. Working with fabrics gathered from friends, stoops around her Brooklyn neighborhood, and secondhand shops, the French-American artist and designer stitches patchwork sculptures that transform materials otherwise destined for the landfill into vibrant forms. When searching for something more specific—say, Lycra, leather, or fur—the artist taps her friends in the industry and organizations like Materials for the Arts and FabScrap.

The resulting pieces take many shapes. There are Blanchard’s spindly trees that layer stripes of fabrics upward, creating visible rings encircling the trunk. Stretch is essential in these arboreal constructions, and the artist shares that she tends to alternate the amount of give a material has, allowing for small bulges and curves that resemble organic life.

For her sprawling bouquet series, Blanchard finds inspiration from Green-Wood Cemetery near her home. She scours the trash cans for polyester scraps, tattered flags, and other materials that once honored the dead. “Remembrance Happy Birthday,” for example, came to fruition after the artist found a balloon bearing those words.

Whether creating a figurative goddess or a three-dimensional vessel, the material guides the form. “It may look spontaneous, but I carefully consider color and pattern when sewing the strips together,” Blanchard says. “If I want to make a ‘fancy’ tree, I’ll seek out haute couture fabrics; if I’m creating a trophy urn meant to show excess, I’ll look for bright gold poly materials.” Whatever the form, though, Blanchard has a central goal: “Each time, I try to create a unique universe or personality.”

If you’re in New York, you can see some of Blanchard’s works in Soft Structures, on view through August 8 at Jane Lombard Gallery. She’s currently working toward an open studio and exhibition as part of New York’s Textile Month, and you can find more from the artist on her website and Instagram.

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With the Industrial Revolution in full swing at the turn of the 20th century, jobs and opportunities attracted people to burgeoning cities. New technologies were being developed at breakneck speed and discoveries within the natural sciences introduced people to invisible yet potent concepts like radio waves and X-rays.

During this period of social transformation, philosophical or occult religious movements like Spiritualism and Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy offered ways to not only connect within a like-minded community but to explore the afterlife—the so-called spirit world—and the very fabric of the universe.

For Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), like many who sought refuge and inspiration in these belief systems, a spiritual link to her surroundings united her with the natural world during “a period of massive change…as people from all levels of society were searching for something new to hold on to,” Johan af Klint and Hedvig Ersman wrote about the Swedish artist’s spiritual journey.

Now on view at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers highlights the institution’s recent acquisition of a phenomenal, 46-leaf portfolio called Nature Studies.

During the spring and summer of 1919 and 1920, af Klint recorded Sweden’s seasonal flora, from lilies of the valley and sunflowers to violets and cherry blossoms. Beyond traditional botanical studies, the artist incorporates her characteristic abstractions and diagrams, surrounding each rendering with esoteric annotations and geometries.

“One has to think of the realm of the nature spirits as the realm of thought; these entities hover around us, some like driving winds, others like soft summer breezes,” af Klint once said.

Grids with unique color relationships or energetic spirals accompany renderings of field woodrush or marsh marigold, and tree specimens are paired with dotted checkerboards. “Through these forms, af Klint seeks to reveal, in her words, ‘what stands behind the flowers,’” the museum says, “reflecting her belief that studying nature uncovers truths about the human condition.”

What Stands Behind the Flowers continues through September 27 and is accompanied by a catalogue that is slated for release on Tuesday. Find your copy on Bookshop, and plan your visit to MoMA on the museum’s website.

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For thousands of years, flowers have been a rich source of symbolism. Dating back to the Ottomans, floriology, or the language of flowers, blossomed in the Victorian era when a bouquet functioned as a nonverbal code. The delicate sweetpea, for example, might have been given as a thank you to a particularly generous host, while buttercups would tell the recipient that the sender thought them childish and immature.

Maria A. Guzmán Capron (previously) references the timeless expressions of flowers for Solo Pienso en Volver a Verte, which opens this week at Lyles & King. Translating to “I only think about seeing you again,” the solo exhibition comprises the artist’s signature textile portraits of opulently patterned fabrics in a layered patchwork. Soft and plump with batting, the quilted characters are each unique, although Capron sometimes uses the same secondhand material on several pieces.

Encircled in hand-dyed fabrics, the figures in this body of work are often doubled or conjoined, as in the embracing women of “Otra Vez” or the two-faced subject of “Echa de Pedacitos.” Love, warmth, and protection feature prominently, as hands grasp for one another or emerge as a three-dimensional gesture. Capron envisions these layered, hybrid forms as a way to visualize the various identities, experiences, and memories within all of us.

The artist also stitches and screenprints a wide array of flowers on faces, garments, and throughout the lush surroundings. Sometimes abstract and often indeterminate, the blooms share stories and messages of desire that might be unspeakable or better communicated through a symbol of affection. Tending to love in all of its forms is the thread that runs through each work, as Capron welcomes us into a world in which compassion and care are the most beautiful gifts.

Solo Pienso en Volver a Verte runs through June 21 in New York. Find more from Capron on Instagram.

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“Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything—except itself,” author May Sarton (1912-1995) wrote in her book Plant Dreaming Deep (1968), a journal about discovering a love of tending to the land. For Carly Glovinski (previously), the sentiment incidentally frames something of a raison d’être for the artist’s remarkable large-scale floral installation at MASS MoCA.

Glovinski was especially moved by Sarton’s book The House by the Sea (1977), which traces the author’s move from New Hampshire to the seacoast of Maine. The vibrancy of gardens spurred the artist’s fascination with flowers, culminating recently in an expansive work titled “Almanac.”

Celebrating the diversity and dynamism of blooms, the piece explores ideas around placemaking and the passage of time. “For Glovinski, the garden is a metaphor for collapsed time and perishable memories,” says an exhibition statement. Along with Sarton, the artist also draws on poet Emily Dickinson’s love for plants, channeling literary reflections on connecting with the simple pleasures—and sublime chaos—of nature.

“Almanac” takes its name from the annual guide that forecasts weather and a provides calendars for astronomical events, tides, and planting. The piece took more than a year to complete and comprises hundreds of pressed flower paintings made with washy acrylic paint applied to both sides of semi-transparent mylar. The gestural brushstrokes on translucent material evoke a sense of lightness and delicacy, like real petals blown up to larger-than-life size. Above the installation, she’s labeled segments with the months the blooms appear.

Glovinski references pressed blossoms that she has grown, harvested, or collected from friends, nodding to Emily Dickinson’s love of the practice. (The poet created a stunning herbarium containing 424 specimens collected around her home in Amherst, Massachusetts.) “By observing, tending, and preserving flowers, ‘Almanac’ becomes both a visual record of the seasons and a commentary on the labor of care,” the museum says.

See more on Glovinski’s website and Instagram.

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“I want to explode the idea of beautiful ikebana,” says Kosen Ohtsubo, one of the foremost conceptual artists working in the Japanese tradition.

Since the 1970s, Ohtsubo has been unsettling the ancient art of flower arranging. Incorporating atypical botanicals like cabbage leaves or weaving in unconventional materials like bathtubs and scrap metal, the artist approaches making with the mindset of a jazz musician, a genre he frequently listens to while working. Improvisation and experimentation are at the core, along with an unquenchable desire for the unexpected.

An exhibition at Kunstverein München in Munich pairs Ohtsubo with Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham who, after discovering the ikebana icon’s work in a book in 2013, became his student. Titled Flower Planet—which references a sign that hangs outside Ohtsubo’s Tokorozawa home and studio—the show presents various sculptures and installations that invite viewers to consider fragility, decay, and the elusive qualities of beauty and control.

Given the ephemeral nature of the materials, photography plays an important role in most ikebana practices as it preserves an arrangement long after it has wilted. This exhibition, therefore, pairs images of earlier works with new commissions, including Ohtsubo’s standout orb titled “Linga München.” Nested in a bed of soil and leaves, the large-scale sculpture wraps willow with metal structures and positions a small candle within its center.

Similarly immersive is “Willow Rain,” which suspends thin branches from the ceiling. Subverting the way we typically encounter fields of growth, the work is one of many in the exhibition that seeds questions about our relationship to the natural world and the limits of human control.

Flower Planet is on view through April 21. Explore Ohstubo’s vast archive on Instagram.

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On candy-colored paper, Rhea Mack draws a world in which all misfits are welcome. The Massachusetts-based artist lovingly renders curious characters with three heads, flowers growing from their palms, or a penchant for plump, strawberry hats.

Mack has a soft spot for these strange oddballs who develop organically, often springing from her Sunday morning sessions seemingly on their own accord. “I usually start drawing, and they just kind of develop over a few hours. I sometimes have a certain feeling or pose in mind, but mostly I am just making it up as I go,” she says.

This intuitive, accommodating attitude influences much of her process, including the decision to draw on pink paper simply “because it made sense,” she says. Mack chooses other materials similarly. “The colored pencil pinks I use in my drawings are very buttery and just feel nice to draw with,” she adds.

As if emerging from a favorite fairytale—creating a children’s book is on Mack’s mind—the drawings twist common plants and animals like dogs and daisies into surreal fantasies. Each is packed with small moments of intrigue and playful patterns like stripes and dots.

In one work, for example, a full human skeleton and dozens of single eyes float from a figure’s gaze, while a pink pup leaps overhead. Another features a quintet bound by a rainbow dress, their bulbous, beige coifs fused together like the clouds above.

Mack’s solo exhibition Massachusetts Dreaming opens next week at Kyst Gallery in Dragor, Denmark, and is on view through May 8. Find prints in her shop, and follow her work on Instagram. (via WePresent)

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Nature has always been a subject of fascination for Clara Lacy, who roamed the fields and streams around her home in Hampshire when she was young, spurring an interest in studying biology. Art also emerged as a way for her to channel her interest in animals and plants, tapping into the long-held tradition of artists documenting flora and fauna for science.

As she moved around to different parts of the world, with stints in Hong Kong and Sydney before returning to the U.K., Lacy absorbed each place’s variations in botanical life, weather, and light, inspiring a body of work that reflects on climate change, species loss, and “the need to find balance between humans and nature,” she says.

The World Has Dropped Its Petals is a series of elaborately detailed graphite drawings illuminating the world of flowers. In heavily contrasted grayscale, the blooms are devoid of the bright colors we typically associate with their petals and foliage, instead highlighted by an array of textures and naturally occurring patterns.

“I’ve always been drawn to monotone work for its subtle tonal variations, offering a contrast to the bombardment of colour and light around us, all vying for our attention,” Lacy tells Colossal. She was drawn to graphite because its limited palette helps the subject to stand out through contrasts like delicate lines or deep blacks. She’s also interested in how graphite is often overlooked in fine art, classified typically as a sketching material rather than a standalone medium.

Lacy titles her pieces after characters in Greek myth like Thanatos, the personification of death, and twin brothers Nyx (Night) and Hypnos (Sleep). She uses her own photos for reference, collaging and layering components in Photoshop until she finds an overall composition that resonates. The World Has Dropped Its Petals draws inspiration from stills lifes of the Dutch Golden Age, too, characterized by dark backgrounds from which flowers or fruit appear to pop in brilliance.

The series is on view through April 13 at James Gorst Architects in London. Lacy has also started working on a new project exploring time and aging, which emphasizes zoomed-in views of flower fragments. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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“To have something be uncanny, you must first introduce the familiar,” says Lizzie Gill. Likening her compositions to a dining table’s place settings, the artist paints elaborate still lifes that explore the matriarchal lineages and how objects passed down shift in meaning over time.

The vivid works feature flat backdrops met by boldly striped or floral linens and a menagerie of animals seized by fresh blooms. A marble and dust emulsion, which Gill layers on the acrylic-painted panel with a baker’s piping tool, adds a life-like texture to the petals. She also utilizes an image-transfer process to translate various pieces from her mother’s porcelain collection, further enmeshing her works in domestic traditions.

The still life, Gill says, is her preferred platform for exploring the tenets of Surrealism and what it means to be a steward. In “Lunar Still Life (Avec L’hippopotame),” for example, long stems coil around an animated porcelain seal and hippo rendered in delicate blue and white. “Still Life With Four Cerulean Vessels” is similarly lively as a miniature fox with a vine wrapped around its torso wanders across the tablescape.

Decorating the vases are unlikely scenes depicting volcanic eruptions, rocket launches, and even a menacing twister ripping across the terrain. Embellishing antique forms with contemporary imagery, the works juxtapose the calm propriety associated with domestic spaces and world-changing, explosive actions generated by both humans and nature.

Based in Sharon, Connecticut, Gill is currently researching historic textiles for upcoming works, and those shown here are on view in her solo exhibition Paraphernalia through April 26 at Hesse Flatow. Follow the latest on Instagram.

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Arranged by size and hue, the blooms in Krzysztof Grzybacz’s large-scale oil paintings appear in comfortable togetherness, each individual’s features amplified by its placement next to those that differ. His Floral Compositions series organizes the flowers against swaths of green fabric, exploring their potent symbolism.

Grzybacz taps into the age-old tradition of flowers in oil, rendering their petals and stems in vibrant hues that capture their unique outlines and textures. Rooted in still life, his compositions are underpinned by abstraction and the artist’s fascination with layering and perspective.

The works in Grzybacz’s current solo exhibition at Galeria Dawid Radziszewski also reference the queer community. “Flowers are like people: they pose, search for their own space, and mark out boundaries,” says a statement from the gallery. The artist nods to the role of order and systems, while also emphasizing the importance of celebrating diversity.

Grouped together in front of textile folds, oblique grids, or distorted human features, the artist invokes the power of alliances through a sense of tenderness, curiosity, and pliability.

Floral Compositions continues through March 29 in Vienna. Find more on Grzybacz’s website and Instagram.

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Every year, Lili Arnold’s mother would block-print holiday cards to send to family and friends. When she was old enough to wield a carving tool, Arnold began to make her own, too. But it wasn’t until college, when she took an Intro to Printmaking class, that she became enthralled with the practice’s myriad methods.

Block printing specifically captured Arnold’s attention because of its relatively simple components and technique—no giant presses required. The block can expand in scale, incorporate different colors, or be layered with numerous pressings.

“I think what I love most about the process is seeing my first print after so many hours of sketching, planning, carving, and troubleshooting,” Arnold tells Colossal. “There’s a lot of thought and time invested in the steps before the actual print becomes real, so when I see that first reveal, it’s both terrifying and thrilling.”

Arnold’s compositions often revolve around natural subjects, especially botanicals like cacti and tropical flowers. She is fascinated by the environment’s infinite interaction of colors, textures, patterns, and symmetry.

“There’s such vast diversity of plant life out there, each ecosystem encapsulating unique details and wonders,” she says. “We as artists and botanical patrons have the pleasure of translating and expressing our appreciation of this beauty through our artwork, writing, gardening, exploring, and beyond.”

Follow updates on Arnold’s Instagram, and browse prints available for purchase in her shop.

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