The inspiration for bizarre floral paintings comes directly from the Voynich manuscript, especially its botanical part, which includes the illustrations of unknown flowers. I turn those drawings of creepy flowers (of to this day untranslated text written in an unknown script) into realistic paintings, whose form has a slight feeling of baroque floral still life.

 

Voynich manuscript is six hundred years old book, probably herbal or medico-astrological work which fascinated me for a long time. The opportunity to examine it through the paintings (and not through the text, which has still not been translated even though a lot of people tried to for hundreds of years) gives me a quite new look at the whole work. Brushstrokes have such specific handwriting, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, illustrations are often simple but strongly informative, though not illusive.

 

It is fascinating to paint the flower, which I will probably never see according to the pictures drawn by someone, whom I will never meet. Trying to see the reality just through six hundred years old illustrations is yet unknown feeling for me. This gallery is a bit different than others. Next to the paintings themselves I also post photos of “originals” from a facsimile of Voynich manuscript.