Mixed Media artist from the Netherlands, Anne ten Donkelaar calls her creations Flower Constructions. I had to think on that phrase for a bit because as I have discovered, words, and how they make me feel have a big impact on my perception of things. So the word “Construction” didn’t seem to at all give life to these delicate creations Anne visions. The word seemed harsh and cold, masculine and immovable.
So as I often do, I went to the dictionary as my assumed definition of a word doesn’t often align perfectly with the actual definition. So here is what I found:
{CONSTRUCTION is the process of creating infrastructure.}
And infrastructure is what, our way of navigating the world; a system of traversing, understanding and functioning within a space. So these Flower Constructions, made up of found details, butterfly wings, oddly bloomed branches and of course hand made elements create in them a small infrastructure for understanding our natural surroundings.
Anne possess in her an uncanny ability to gather life and left behind bits and elevate them to artistic status. Her gifts transcend the flat paper and brush artist we all can relate to easily. Her artistry is in seeing opportunity and building from that opportunity small worlds of understanding. Anne’s Flower worlds speak to the structure of our natural world and the beauty of how it all just fits together. Anne capsulizes moments of experience and beauty.
