Flowers do something powerful to us – they offer beauty, solace, hope. This power is not merely anecdotal nor accidental, but rather “inherited wisdom scribed by evolution into our nerve-endings and brain chemistry. In the presence of flowers our senses glow, Beauty awakens in us.” (David George Haskell, How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature’s Revolutionaries.)

Art, as proven in numerous studies in neuroaesthetics, provides a similar calm as nature. A respite, a contemplative space. The medical profession has known this for years and it serves as the impetus for psychiatrists in Canada and the UK prescribing patients museum visits and park passes. Stand in front of the lush fiber works by Melissa Leandro or intimately immersive paintings by Amy Bay and feel your breathing slow and your blood pressure drop.

Both flowers and art, through careful observance and the brain’s processing of color, shape, and patterns, can trigger memory and emotional responses. Spend enough time with works of art and viewers can conjure their own stories and interpretations. A specific scene may initially motivate Nicholas Szymanski, but his process of stripping images down to color and form allows his viewers an agency to read their own stories into the works. Process similarly plays a central role in Reed Anderson’s autopoietic works. For Anderson, the final image is both the tool and the object of its own creation. So, while the interaction and interpretation of the final floral image is left to the viewer, the process of getting there leads to beauty. This “self-creation” mirrors Haskell’s “language of beauty”, where the biologist argues that flowers adaptively “create their own beauty and sensory signals (colors, scents) to interact with the world...to create their own future.”

Conversely, for some artists the symbolism appointed to specific floral imagery carries specific meanings. While viewers may attach their own story to a representative floral image, artists often assign deeper meanings to the literal images. Flowers are more than they appear in the works of Alina Bliumis and Junventino Aranda. The soft, delicately rendered watercolors of Bliumis’s flowers contain a hidden, powerful medicinal history of self-determination. And the larger-than-life rose in Aranda’s embroidered work is more than a rose is a rose. Below the surface, the artist addresses the search for self-identity as it relates to the social and economic struggles of Chicanos.

Maybe above all else, flowers offer hope. Through their evolution, inventiveness, and cooperation over millions of years, flowers, or what Haskell calls "nature’s revolutionaries”, offer resilience and creativity in the face of rapid environmental upheaval and change. The flowers in Renee Adams’s sculptures can’t be contained. Sprouting from trash on a rural landscape, the colorful, bold blooms epitomize a creative resilience. The flowers in Sarah Bedford’s paintings are harbingers of hope. Fanciful and fleeting, the fragile flora are visible reminders of life’s impermanence and celebrations of life’s renewal.

Flowers have always been and will remain fertile subjects for creative exploration. From the earliest depictions in ancient Egyptian cave paintings through almost every culture, religion, society to modern day, flowers have been studied, depicted, celebrated in powerful works of art. And, like the flower subjects themselves, the resultant floral works of art never get old, because they continually allow us to see and experience even the most familiar things in new and exciting ways. David Kennedy Cutler’s uniquely inventive take on a still-life contains multitudes – it's 2-D and 3-D; analog and digital; photograph and painting and sculpture and collage; it’s what we see and what we imagine we see. A similarly new and unique take on the time-tested floral subject is Colin Ives’s video of a blooming hosta digitally morphing, manipulating, almost smearing across a monitor before regenerating back into its original self. Looking at hosta in a shaded garden will never be the same.

Gallery 1882 believes art can act in the same way. And situated in one of the most biodiverse environments in the United States, we want our inaugural exhibition to celebrate this creative power of flowers and art. We also want to “give flowers” to the exhibiting artists, to art lovers and to the Chesterton and Duneland community.

Works

Renee Adams, Sunflower Collapse, wood, epoxy clay, acrylic paint, steel, gold leaf, 21 x 9 x 13 inches

Renee Adams, Milkweed, 2021, found object, wood, epoxy clay, acrylic paint, 27 x 18 x 23 inches

Renee Adams, Torch Lily, 2021, found object, wood, epoxy clay, acrylic paint, foam, 14 x 9 x 5 inches

Reed Anderson, Standards and Strikes, 2026, acrylic and collage on hand cut paper 72 x 67 inches

Reed Anderson, Terri’s Tropical Paradise, 2025, acrylic and flashe on hand cut paper, 29 x 27 inches

Reed Anderson, Everyday Savings, 2022, acrylic and flashe on hand cut paper, 29 x 27 inches

Reed Anderson, Schnitzel Boogie, 2017, acrylic on hand cut paper, 42 x 40 inches

Reed Anderson, Juicy Fruit, 2020, acrylic on hand cut paper, 25 x 24 inches

Juventino Aranda, The Enemies of Freedom Do Not Fight (They Just Shoot), 2022, mouline stranded cotton embroidery on black cotton velveteen, corrugated cardboard, and artist’s frame, 60 x 38½ x 2 inches

John E. Bannon, Time of the Signs #5, 2026, crypton and argon tubes on nonsbestos neon-patterned fabric, 40 x 20 inches

John E. Bannon, Time of the Signs #6, 2026, crypton and argon tubes on nonsbestos neon-patterned fabric, 40 x 20 inches

Amy Bay, Oh Me, 2024, oil on canvas, 11 x 9¾ x 1½ inches

Amy Bay, Oh My, 2024, oil on canvas, 11 x 9¾ x 1½ inches

Amy Bay, I Want, I Want, 2024, oil on canvas, 11 x 9¾ x 1½ inches

Sarah Bedford, Above the Fog and Sea, 2025, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 72 x 60 inches

Courtesy of Sarah Bedford and Mrs., Maspeth, NY

Sarah Bedford, Trout Lillies and Blue Knots, 2024, acrylic and oil pastel on linen, 14 x 11 inches

Alina Bliumis, Pomegranate, 2023, watercolor on wood with velvet artist frame, 13½ x 10½ x 1½ inches

Alina Bliumis, Villa Villa, 2023, watercolor on wood with velvet artist frame, 13½ x 10½ x 1½ inches

Alina Bliumis, Parsley, 2023, watercolor, watercolor pencil on wood panel, velvet artist frame, 13½ x 10½ x 1½ inches

Alina Bliumis, Ipomoea Purga, 2023, watercolor, watercolor pencil on wood panel, velvet artist frame, 13½ x 10½ x 1½ inches

Lizania Cruz, Flowers for Immigration, Christina, 2017, triptych photograph C-print, 24 x 16 inches, edition 1 of 3

Lizania Cruz, Flowers for Immigration, Viviana, 2017, triptych photograph C-print, , 24 x 16 inches, edition 3 of 3

David Kennedy Cutler, Woodland Curve, 2022, inkjet transfer and acrylic on plaster and canvas, clear coat, 39 x 15.5 x 16 inches

David Kennedy Cutler, Nebuchadnezzar, 2023, inkjet transfer and acrylic and, clear coat on canvas, armature wire, wood, zipper, 68 x 18 x 11 inches

David Kennedy Cutler, White Roses (Bowl), 2025, inkjet transfer and acrylic on plaster and canvas, clear coat, 30 x 14 x 11 inches

Chantell Donwell, Pink Garden , 2023, pen and watercolor on paper, 18 x 12 inches

Chantell Donwell, Yellow Garden, 2023, pen and watercolor on paper, 18 x 12 inches

Flor Flores, Geranium Blush (sonrojo de germia), 2025, soft pastel on paper mounted on wood panel, 10 x 12 inches

Flor Flores, El Cariño de los Filamentos (Geranio)/The fondness of filaments (Geranium), 2025, soft pastel on paper mounted on wood panel, 20 x 16 inches

Flor Flores, Cross-pollination/Entre flores , 2026, soft pastel and acrylic gouache on muslin, 24 x 16 inches

Colin Ives, Garden in the Machine: Hosta, 2026, video with 32-inch screen

Louise Jones, Blue Morning Glory, 2026, acrylic on canvas, 16 x 14 inches

Louise Jones, Upsy Daisies, 2022-2026, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

Louise Jones, Dogwood Days of Summer, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

Louise Jones, Dandelion Tag, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 8 inches

Melissa Leandro, Tangled Puntas, 2024, jacquard woven cloth, embroidery, stitching, yarn, foil, 41 x 47 inches

Melissa Leandro, Patch Field, 2024, jacquard woven cloth, embroidery, stitching, yarn, foil, 35 x 42 inches

Melih Meriç, Kumquat, 2024, woodblock prints on Japanese paper, thread, 20 x 40 inches

Melih Meriç, Pomegranate/Lily, 2024, woodblock prints on Japanese paper, thread, 50 x 60 inches

Melih Meriç, Blueberry, 2024, woodblock prints on Japanese paper, thread, 20 x 40 inches

Ben Murray, Garden Sequence I, 2024, oil and acrylic on evolon and poplar, 24 x 40 inches (with spacing)

William J. O'Brien, The Festival of Small Suns, 2019, marker, goache, pencil on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Night Orchard, Gokalum, 2019, marker, gouache on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Petals Shrine, 2019, marker, gouache, pencil on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Temple Garden, 2019, marker, gouache on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Unraveling Gardlands, 2019, marker, gouache on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Garden Offering, 2019, marker, gouache on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Night Procession, 2019, marker, gouache on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Wonder Wheels, 2019, marker, gouache on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

William J. O'Brien, Petal Eclipse, 2019, marker, gouache on paper, 21 x 18 in (framed)

Olivia Parker, Persephone’s Garden, 44_PG Wind, 2021, digital pigment print, 25 x 18 inches, editions 2 of 12

Olivia Parker, Persephone’s Garden, 8_PG Wind, 2021, digital pigment print, 25 x 18 inches, editions 2 of 12

Olivia Parker, Persephone’s Garden, 6_PG Wind, 2021, digital pigment print, 25 x 18 inches, editions 2 of 12

Olivia Parker, Persephone’s Garden, 36_PG Wind, 2021, digital pigment print, 25 x 18 inches, editions 2 of 12

Suneeva Saldanha, Untitled #2, 2024, acrylic on paper, 13¼ x 11½ inches

Suneeva Saldanha, Towards Fruition #2, 2024, acrylic on paper, 13¼ x 11½ inches

Suneeva Saldanha, Love Birds, 2024, acrylic on paper, 15½ x 12 inches

Tad Savinar, Lost Flowers (square), 2024, digital print on paper, 31½ x 36 inches, edition 2 of 12

Tad Savinar, Lost Flowers (round), 2024, digital print on paper, 31½ x 36 inches, edition 2 of 12

Eric Stefanski, You and Me, 2026, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

Eric Stefanski, Whatever, 2026, oil on framed laminated print, 24 x 24 inches

Raychael Stine, Vision 37 (singing Kintsugi and everywhere), 2022, oil on canvas, 17 x 13 inches

Raychael Stine, Middle Lover 4 (night dance color bowl with cosmos and black hole), 2023, oil on canvas, 22x18 inches

Raychael Stine, Vision 28 (sweet cosmos and sweet beam), 2022, oil on canvas, 17 x 13 inches

Nicholas Szymanski, Walking Across the Yard, 2026, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

Nicholas Szymanski, Roadside Memory, 2026, oil on canvas over panel, 8 x 24 inches

Nicholas Szymanski, Oliver’s Window, 2026, oil on canvas over panel, 8 x 24 inches

Emily Tanner-McLean, Seed, 2025, video, 10 minutes, edition 1 of 5

Winnie Truong, Sensors, 2024, colored pencil, cut paper, mixed media, 15¾ x 5 x 10 inches

Winnie Truong, Medulla, 2024, colored pencil, cut paper, mixed media, 21.5 x 9.5 x 5 inches

Brandi Twilley

White Tulip I, 2015, oil on canvas 30 x 24 in

Brandi Twilley

White Tulip II, 2025, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 in

because. . . FLOWERS

Works