STORY BEHIND THE ART OF ELAINE SEARLE

16th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and the Horticultural Society of New York

Garden Rhubarb

Rheum rhabarbarum

Ideas for my paintings often have a long gestation period. When something catches my eye it can stay in my head for up to three years before I commit it to paper! This was the case with the Rhubarb. Several years ago during a visit to the home of the world renowned botanical art tutor Anne Marie Evans (my long time mentor), I was enthralled by a huge and vigorous specimen she had grown in a pot outside her kitchen. I had never seen Rhubarb grown this way, celebrated as much for its sheer beauty as for its culinary merit. I came away from that visit inspired.

I set out to grow my specimen, bought from a local nursery with only one tiny leaf. As I nurtured it through three growing seasons, recording the beauty of its life cycle, I became more and more fascinated. Look how the crowns emerge, looking like bright pink brains, and slowly unfurl to form miniature versions of the enormous leaves! And how it once threw up a enormous flower spike which slowly broke free from a papery sheath. It seemed to possess so much 'Joie de vivre'. I began to wonder what activity was happening underground. Dare I dig it up to find out?

I am very unusual amongst botanical painters as I possess no gardening skills whatsoever. So the main challenge was to keep my pot grown specimen alive and well through many seasons and the physical assaults that my study would entail.

Whilst working on 'below ground' structures, I had the poor thing out of its pot, with roots washed off, in my studio with a BBQ skewer supporting it whilst I photographed, drew and painted. Sometimes for days it was put outside 'naked' in a bucket of water. During an unusually severe winter, I often had to chip away the ice before bringing it indoors again for further study. At one point I even broke off a large piece of the root ball so that I could continue on the painting away from my own studio........that 'daughter' is now thriving in the vegetable patch of a botanical artist friend hundreds of miles away. I hope that my friend too may be inspired to paint it one day.

The composition is rather characteristic of my work in that I often crop elements of the overall image to create a window through which the viewer looks. This implies that there is much more happening 'off stage'. I also use exaggerated 'aerial perspective', where color is modified and detail deliberately sacrificed in areas to enhance the feeling of depth and to draw attention to chosen focal points.

I am often drawn to plants that make strong statements of scale, architecture, color or texture. Making the ordinary appear rather extraordinary is a great challenge. The Rhubarb ticked all those boxes. I see my Rhubarb as a rather mature but still very beautiful operatic diva, lifting herself up on the points of her shoes and greeting her adoring 'public' with arms outstretched and perhaps just a little too much bright red lipstick. A friend who saw the finished painting described its pose as 'Rubenesque' and I think she was right. 

As this was painted specifically for a public show, I planned this painting to work at different viewing distances. Firstly I wanted the artwork to be able to dominate a gallery wall and draw the viewers across the room toward it. Once in closer proximity, I hoped that they would be drawn further by its color and detail and then held captive by the complexity of its dark tangle of roots. The overall reaction I sought was “I didn't think Rhubarb could be so beautiful”.

Before someone reports me to the 'plant cruelty police' I must assure you that my specimen is now happily repotted and thriving. Its grandeur will draw me to paint it again, I am sure. Or maybe I will now be tempted to tackle something even larger, like Gunnera manicata, its prehistoric look alike.

Next Story

Back to List