Story behind the art of Monica de Vries Gohlke

Botanical Art Worldwide 2025-A More Abundant Future:

Diversity in Garden, Farm, and Field

American Society of Botanical Artists at the Foundry Art Centre, St. Charles, MO

Maize Morado

Zea mays

It was harvest time at Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the mature maize plants in their complete form had been lifted from the ground and stacked up against a fence. I had watched them growing over the the summer, but now I saw the plants in their natural totality including… the ROOTS! I couldn't take my eyes off them. I was fascinated. I decided to give them priority in my composition, neglecting the other elements of the plant to have plenty of room for the roots to take over the visual field.

We've all experienced the thrill of biting into a juicy piece of corn, soft and yielding (with butter dripping from it), but here, another part of the plant, the roots, offered me a different kind of pleasure. That's how this singular maize portrait came to be, and I think that my choice to depict it in the etching medium enhanced its virtues.

Litchi

Litchi chinensis

My lychee story began in Mauritius, where I had traveled to look for endangered plants to paint. I encountered several farmers growing the exportable fruits of the land, including lychees. A friend took me to a farm full of tall bushy trees with the bright red lychee fruits growing in the treetops.

He told me the unhappy story of the Mauritian flying fox, Pteropus niger, a species of fruit bat, endemic to the island. The bats have been hunted and killed to near extinction because they feed on the lychee fruits and so threaten farmers’ incomes. In 2018, to support the farmers, the Mauritian government allowed the culling of tens of thousands of the flying foxes. By now their numbers are much reduced and I'm afraid to look up the latest statistics.

Covering the trees with netting would substantially protect the animals and the harvest, but I was told that the expense would be so great as to undercut any financial benefits. Therefore, killing these beautiful and in so many ways beneficial animals is considered the easiest means to deal with the situation.

This is very sad. Lychees are not part of my diet, but I did draw the tree branch with clusters of fruits on it that the farmer offered me as a gift. He had hung white cotton flags on his trees to deter the bats, which relieved my ill feelings a bit at the time. So, I ended up drawing the branch, enjoying the process, and then later when I was back in the US, etching and painting this fine plant.

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Read more about this artist's work: Wildly Exquisite