Rebecca Abbott

When I began photographing flowers, I found that if I became attentive and calm before them, they revealed features I hadn’t at first perceived, subtle secrets and mysteries.

There is always a flaw — a bold or gentle break in symmetry, a beauty mark on petal or stern — as if each flower is bored by perfection. The refusal of each flower to be perfect tempted me to tamper with nature. In the “Imagined” series I select one half of a flower and join it to its mirrored image. There is a transformation. Botanical creatures emerge with an otherworldly formality, like iconic goddesses from another planet.

When I see the work of Georgia O’Keeffe and Joyce Tenneson, two artists I admire, I am struck by their startingly fresh visions of flowers. My work is an evolving effort to display the beauty and grace of flowers through my own prism.