“Natural Selection, Traditional Botanicals Reimagined”

January 2023 - July 2023

Jane Hammond’s botanical collages offer a re-interpretation of the painterly tradition of botanical art. Whilst the spectacular arrangements off lowers, grasses and seeds, accompanied by insects and birds are curiously familiar, the juxtaposition of images from a myriad of places and time results in works that are entirely original.

As a Collagist, Hammond finds her imagery from endless sources, including old calendars, cards, wrapping paper, cloth... She describes herself as ‘having a diverse practice collecting found information and transforming it’. The collages look carefree and spontaneous, but they demand phenomenal care and application. As art historian and critic, Jenny Ulglo says, “arrangement is everything”. Jane brings a sense of harmony to her collections of found imagery that she meticulously crafts into an artwork. Her collages hi-light the incredible nuances, niches and unexpected connections that exist in the natural word.

The contrasting styles and divergent origins of these juxtaposed images mean that, on closer inspection, the apparently natural forms develop an abstract quality resulting in a familiar yet completely unnatural realm. The three-dimensional effect of this varied media makes the work appear hyper-real, immersing the viewer in an unexpected way.

Hammond’s work is included in over 70 public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; MFA, Boston; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the J.Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; the Biblioteque Nationale, Paris and the Albertina, Vienna.

‘It is a great pleasure to be hosting an exhibition by such an established international artist whose fascination with botanical art resonates so closely with our passions at Thyme.”

- Caryn Hibbert, Founder, Thyme