I curated this art on my living room wall during lockdown!

Roses represent love, romance, purity and to me, their thorns represent the hardship of life that no one escapes. So, here you can see a selection of my art that all has roses on:

Title: Smell the Roses III

The title is short for the saying, “Wake up and smell the roses”. It is about a body cast of a cheeky bottom, shaped into a love heart, with roses growing round. So when the title says, Smell The Roses, you reach to get close to her bottom, which hopefully smells like roses. This is made of glazed stoneware clay and so it is suitable for hanging outside on your garden wall.
Size: 34 x 34 x 14 cm

Title: Weeping Roses

This is an oil painting of some roses my mother was given to comfort her through her bereavement. They were so beautiful, I arranged them in a vase and sat looking at them for ages. They made a lasting impression, so I painted them and made them into Weeping Roses, to help express my grief. You can read more about them and a poem about my father’s death in the description on the artwork page.
Size: 80 x 60 cm

Title: Roses

I painted these Roses with my fingers, sloshing the oil paint around liberally. An easy, fun little painting.
Size: 33 x 24 cm.

Body casts with roses

I’m still developing the idea of entwining roses around female body parts. As you can see in each sculpture, I let the roses flow over the form in a different way. I taught myself how to make ceramic roses using a cake decorating tutorial. Smell The Roses IV and Daughter of a Priest III are still available to buy.

Why I like Roses

I didn’t realise I liked roses so much, until one day, back in 2004, in a colourful Dutch street market. I was with my friend Penny, who kept pointing things out to me that I liked. She said I liked everything that had roses on – things like table mats, a quilt cover and loose fabric. Sometimes it takes a friend to point these things out to us. So now I know what flowers I like!

Thank you for reading.

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