![\"\"](\"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Sharna\u00e9-Beardsley-Orchidelirium-11-2019-2.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSharna\u00e9 Beardsley, Orchidelirium 11<\/em>, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist and The National, \u014ctautahi Christchurch.<\/h6>\n\n\n\nI wonder if Beardsley means to hint at more insidious experiments, this floral shapeshifter standing in for less elegant Frankenstein\u2019s monsters: crops manipulated to make them resistant to Roundup, say, allowing the pesticide pedlars to ramp up their commerce (never mind that the product peddled might be carcinogenic). The artist sends me a magazine clipping of a quartet of \u2018older gentlemen\u2019, all white. They\u2019re ostensibly scrutinising a prize-winning orchid, like a dog at a show. The image recalls of the foundations of genetic engineering in cross-pollination and selective breeding. How long we\u2019ve moulded organisms to our needs, to satisfy our appetite both for food and for the fantastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think also of the science-colonial impulse. The will to uncover the secrets of the botanical world, because plants pay dividends (yielding cloth, for instance, relieving pain), and the will to control it, by collecting samples, ordering them, labelling them with quintessentially western Latinate names. Equally, of course, there\u2019s bliss in knowledge. I remember the first time I saw Banks\u2019 Florilegium<\/em>, a compendium of copperplate engravings of botanical specimens collected during the voyages of James Cook, printed in colour some two centuries late. I had not previously been aware of the orchids native to Aotearoa, but there they were among the folios: tiny and delicate-looking, perfect and shy.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBeardsley\u2019s orchid is not shy. It\u2019s a performer, exceeding the bounds of its white stage. There\u2019s something mischievous about the flower, as if it\u2019s trying on new identities, turning the tables to mock an insect mocking a bloom. Orchids of roughly the same hue exist, including in Aotearoa, but this particular bloom strikes me as akin to a drag queen trying on an iris costume, seeing how it feels to wear imperial purple for the evening. I think of the iris in art history. Its recent use by Dane Mitchell. Its function as a figure for the blue-cloaked Virgin\u2014as, for instance, in Hugo van der Goes\u2019s Portinari Altarpiece from the 15th century. Immaculate mimicry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other historical images ghost Beardsley\u2019s work. Pictures from early herbals and compendia. The painstakingly rendered arrangements of botanical artists working in Aotearoa, so many of whom have been women: Fanny Osborne, Georgina Hetley, Emily Harris, Sarah Featon, Audrey Eagle. There are echoes, too, of modernist masterpieces, such as the Japanese-flavoured watercolours of Rita Angus and the bodily blooms of Georgia O\u2019Keeffe. One could go on. And that\u2019s significant. Beardsley is far from alone in her fascination with flowers. She\u2019s one in a legion in time\u2014including the Sunday painters, the apothecaries, the tulipomaniacs, and, naturally, the \u2018orchidelirious\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I minister to the orchid on my kitchen bench. I make plans to buy it a new pot, to displace the awful tawdriness of the plastic container it came in. I investigate tricks to trigger reblooming, buy the requisite fertiliser, test out a few positions within the apartment. I hanker for the day the new flowers begin to appear and wonder at the process. Will they emerge with their blazing magenta markings already formed? Or will these develop later, deepening over time like accretions of pigment on a fleshy piece of paper? Time will tell. One simply has to be patient, and pay a close eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beardsley\u2019s orchid is not shy. It\u2019s a performer, exceeding the bounds of its white stage. There\u2019s something mischievous about the flower, as if it\u2019s trying on new identities, turning the tables to mock an insect mocking a bloom. Orchids of roughly the same hue exist, including in Aotearoa, but this particular bloom strikes me as akin to a drag queen trying on an iris costume, seeing how it feels to wear imperial purple for the evening. I think of the iris in art history. Its recent use by Dane Mitchell. Its function as a figure for the blue-cloaked Virgin\u2014as, for instance, in Hugo van der Goes\u2019s Portinari Altarpiece from the 15th century. Immaculate mimicry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other historical images ghost Beardsley\u2019s work. Pictures from early herbals and compendia. The painstakingly rendered arrangements of botanical artists working in Aotearoa, so many of whom have been women: Fanny Osborne, Georgina Hetley, Emily Harris, Sarah Featon, Audrey Eagle. There are echoes, too, of modernist masterpieces, such as the Japanese-flavoured watercolours of Rita Angus and the bodily blooms of Georgia O\u2019Keeffe. One could go on. And that\u2019s significant. Beardsley is far from alone in her fascination with flowers. She\u2019s one in a legion in time\u2014including the Sunday painters, the apothecaries, the tulipomaniacs, and, naturally, the \u2018orchidelirious\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I minister to the orchid on my kitchen bench. I make plans to buy it a new pot, to displace the awful tawdriness of the plastic container it came in. I investigate tricks to trigger reblooming, buy the requisite fertiliser, test out a few positions within the apartment. I hanker for the day the new flowers begin to appear and wonder at the process. Will they emerge with their blazing magenta markings already formed? Or will these develop later, deepening over time like accretions of pigment on a fleshy piece of paper? Time will tell. One simply has to be patient, and pay a close eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/p>\n\n\n\n