Two more Thursdays remain for people to view and experience the National Tropical Botanical Garden 2023 Florilegium Art Show at the NTBG Botanical Research Center on Papalina Road in Kalaheo.
“I met some of the artists who are from Australia,” said Angela Headley of Island Art Gallery on Thursday during the show’s public exhibition hours from 9 a.m. to noon. “They came to see Friday Night Art in Hanapepe, and were telling me about this exhibition. I had to come and see.”
Botanical illustrations of various plants found growing in the NTBG facility are shown by the artists, who spent several weeks at NTBG, studying and creating botanical illustrations of a plant they select.
“This took me about a year to complete,” said Jane Goldsmith, an artist at the show. “We spent a couple of weeks studying and starting the piece. I took it home to finish and brought it back so it could be shown.”
Goldsmith was on hand to talk about her rendering of a polyscias racimosa specimen.
“This is a Kaua‘i native plant,” said Goldsmith, talking in detail about the flower of the tree. “But it doesn’t have a name. People call it ‘munroidendron’ until they named it polyscias racimosa.”
According to the NTBG website, a florilegium, which is Latin for “gathering flowers,” is a collection that documents plants from a particular region or botanic garden. In the case of the NTBG 2023 Florilegium, the plants, both native and introduced, are all growing at NTBG.
“These botanical illustrations are gorgeous, scientific, and sincere messages from tropical plants, translated through the masterful devotion of NTBG Florilegium artists,” said David Bryant of NTBG. “Each artist has spent days in communion with their botanical subjects, observing, understanding and expressing their essence so that we might peer more deeply into the beautiful lives of plants.”
Wendy Hollender, of Draw Botanical in New York, has been coordinating the field of artists for more than a dozen years. During her tour through NTBG, she worked on the coffee family that includes the familiar gardenia flower that will be ready for the 2024 Florilegium Art Show.
Participating artists include Goldsmith, Hollender, Amanda Ahmed, Esther Carpi, Daisy Chung, Rosemary Donnelly, Akiko Enokido, Kathryn Hunt Giovinazzo, Asuka Hishiki, Joan Luzney, Sam McWilliams, Doug Milne, Harriet O’Donnell, John Pastoriza-Pinol and Catherine Watters.
For those unable to view the exhibit in-person, a Florilegium Collection is available online by visiting the NTBG website, nationaltropicalbotanicalgarden.myshopify.com/collections/florilegium.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 808-245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
