New Showcase - ‘Sculpting Nature’ by Shannon Clegg
This May and June, Shannon Clegg’s botanical sculptures are blooming at Flow Gallery. Reimagining the traditional art of pressing flowers in three-dimensional form, her designs are made from a delicate lattice of stems that enable the flowers to stand unfettered by a vase.
“ For me making is more than just producing; it's a way to re-engage with the natural world. Innovating traditional craft practices, like flower pressing, goes beyond methods; it's about modernising our heritage and fostering sustainability. ”
- Shannon Clegg
Shannon Clegg creates botanical sculptures using a unique hand-moulding technique and fresh-cut flowers, such as Statice and Kangaroo Paw. Working from fresh rather than dried flowers, she reimagines the traditional craft process of flower pressing: her three-dimensional, sculptural interpretation preserves the dynamism of flowers growing in nature.
Her flower sculptures look to biophilic design, which reflects the human desire to connect with nature in the built environment for well-being reasons by integrating natural elements into one’s interior space. Through the utilisation and reimagining of traditional craft skills, her practice investigates the narrative potential of making to encourage a better human-nature relationship.
The technique she uses is therefore entirely innovative. To develop the process, she based her research at The Herbarium at The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, looking through archival methods for storing pressed flowers and equipment used by botanists to collect flowers from around the world.
Investigating the mould-making of other crafts such as ceramic and millinery, she then created her own technique to form and press real plant material to create vase-like sculptures. The technique involves hand-making moulds that are used to shape the plant material over several weeks after which they are preserved to help retain the flower’s colour and shape.
Shannon’s collection made specially for Flow Gallery uses seasonal flowers that she hand-selects at flower markets, and her flowers are sourced both locally and abroad. The pieces in this showcase use Kangaroo Paw, Lavender and Statice, which are all flowers that Shannon favours for their strength and textural richness. The combination of their natural structural qualities and Shannon’s preservation techniques enable to flowers to stand upright, as if freshly picked or even still growing from the earth. In this way, she not only preserves the flowers’ botany, but the essence of flowers in bloom.
About Shannon Clegg
South African-born Shannon Clegg is a designer-maker based in East London who looks to innovate traditional craft processes to create objects that connect people to nature. She grew up amongst the flora of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa where she trained as a tailor. After a brief stint in fashion, she realised she had “issues with the ethics of production in the industry” so packed her bags for London, hoping to discover different contexts for making. She went on to study BA in Contemporary Crafts at Falmouth University in Cornwall and MA in Product and Furniture Design at Kingston University in London.
