Marina Lommerse & Hayley Curnow - The Language of Flowers

Visit Marina's website   https://www.marinalommerse.com

and follow Marina & Hayley on instagram - @marinalommerse @hayleyofhearts

Photo credit - Apertunity Productions

 THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS celebrates flowers and how they touch people. It is an ongoing series of ephemeral flower installations exhibited in public spaces. Each artwork is researched to create a unique story in response to the space, the place and underlying meaning of the event.

 MARINA & HAYLEY have worked collaboratively for a number of years, producing mixed-media installations. They love experimenting with ideas that engage people. Working collaboratively, using their diverse expertise, sense of adventure and shared love of colour, spatial design and flowers — they make public spaces blossom.

 Together they research, design, make and hang the installations. They mentor a community of interns, volunteers and casual staff that contribute to the making of hundreds of flowers. This  interview featuring The Language of Flowers: spring flower gallop illustrates their process. The rainbow palette of flowers was inspired by The Melbourne Cup — a horserace that stops the Nation.The installation featured 1600 handmade paper flowers made from fine Italian crepe sourced from Carte Fini, tracing paper hand dyed by the artists, and netting.

 Lommerse & Curnow’s latest collaboration The Language of Flowers: tales of mothering was in Off the Page, an installation exhibition supporting a writing festival Scribblers in the Claremont Town Centre.

 Tales of Mothering is underpinned by the novel ‘The Language of Flowers’ by Vanessa Diffenbaugh; a vivid portrait of a woman who gives expression to her feelings through flowers, enriching the lives of others. Victoria’s abandonment at birth, experiences of the foster care system and subsequent difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships are portrayed with a depth of feeling, enhanced by the use of flowers. A story of survival, acceptance, love and strength, The Language of Flowers demonstrates that even the thorniest of plants produce the most beautiful flowers.

 Tales of Mothering invites you to play, interact, and immerse yourself with the meaning of flowers to express your sentiments around Mother’s Day, be it admiration, love, friendship, gratitude, sympathy, devotion or celebration. The work represents mothering as a social practice of nurturing and caring for people, and therefore is inclusive of ‘mothers’ of any gender; biological, non-biological, multi-generational and multiple.

 The warm palette of pinks, white and burgundy is inspired by the giving and receiving of chrysanthemums (mums), representing the happiness and longevity of love. In Australia, pink chrysanthemums represent gratitude for our mothers, while white is for remembrance when our mothers have passed on. Light red mums embody ‘admiration’ and dark red Mums signify love and affection.

 The artists welcome invitations for exhibitions, collaborations and workshops.

 About the artists

 Curator, muralist, installationist and visual artist, Marina Lommerse has practised in Canada, the UK and Australia.  As a nature-based artist, the context Marina works in informs the idea and medium. Her experience in spatial design and theories about place making, community building and nature influence her paintings, murals and mixed media installations. She has led several national and international exhibitions and is the Australian Fellow for the French arts organisation Domaine de Boisbuchet — which runs art, design and architecture workshops and travelling exhibitions in cooperation with the Pompidou Centre (Paris) and the Vitra Design Museum (Germany). Marina holds a MA Design, a BA Interior Architecture and a Certificate of Natural History Illustration.

Hayley Curnow is an interior designer at Fiona Lynch, based in Melbourne, and writer for various architecture and design journals, including Artichoke, Houses, Folio and Blueprint (UK). Hayley was invited to present a paper at the international IDEA Symposium 2014, hosted and convened by RMIT, Melbourne, and has published stories in Thames & Hudson’s The Apartment House and The Terrace House. With a varied back- ground in academia, interiors, exhibition and installation design, Hayley finds delight in the finer details of a project and is particularly interested in the way interior spaces can shape our everyday experience. Hayley holds a BA Interior Architecture (Hons).