Fabricating wildly detailed botanical drawings, Nancy Blum confines nature’s endless energy into layers of colored pencil and gouache. Her large-scale works present elaborate and accurate renditions, yet she composes each piece in an “inaccurate” way—commingling flowers that normally grow apart in nature. In a recent statement, she notes “I use botanical motifs to create images that are universally associated with growth and continuity. My deeper intent is to conjure the ‘flower’ as an active, forceful agent, subverting a culturally conditioned point of view that often deems the ephemeral and the organic as less powerful and of limited value. My ‘wonderland’ presents a view of life that pulses with expansive fecundity; hopefully, it also propels comprehension of the connectedness of all beings within the limitless energy operating throughout this world.”

Blum received her Master of Fine Arts from the Cranbrook Academy of Art (1991) and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.