STORY BEHIND THE ART OF MONIKA DE VRIES GOHLKE

Wildly Exquisite: Florida’s Native Plants

Magnolia

Magnolia ashei

I first saw this small, but stunning tree at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It was young, but it was blooming in profusion. I immediately fell in love with it. Oh! the huge size of the shiny leaves and flowers! I felt like Alice in Wonderland and returned the next day with sketchbook and pencil.

I realized the potential of a good strong graphic layout right away, with the large leaves forming shapely positive/negative spaces. The brilliant white of the flowers and the magenta red of the seedpods completed my vision of a fairy tale tree translated into a black and white etching.

When I returned to the garden a few months later, I couldn’t find it. The tree had been dug up and removed. I was sad. I learned that it was not doing as well up here in Brooklyn as it would have in its native habitat, the South.

But I was glad that I had been given the opportunity, though brief, to make its acquaintance.

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Read more about this artist’s work: Abundant Future