Kane Lehanneur, Flower Bed 23, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 125 x 155cm. Courtesy: the artist.
A playful meditation on the meaning of flowers, Kane Lehanneur’s Flower Bed 53 is a joy to behold. The four bright flowers are each slightly unique, conjoined in a single flowing line against a segmented yellow canvas. The artist’s hand is clear in the soft brush strokes of honey-coloured paint that make up the petals, the work’s golden background shining through where the paint is thinly applied. Flowers in art have a long history of symbolism and philosophical connotations, used by artists to construct complex narratives for the viewer to decode. In the case of Flower Bed 53, the viewer is denied any idea of the exact type of flower these blooms are, owing to Lenhanneur’s abstracted style, and therefore we are left to ponder what their meaning might be. On the one hand, the work evokes images of daisy-chains and hot summer days spent in rolling fields of wildflowers. On the other, flowers have a natural association with loss and condolences, linked inextricably with the ebb and flow of life. Both explanations could be equally applied to this work, and this paradox lends it a sense of enigma and mystery. Both organically undulating and deliberately executed, balanced between negative and positive space, the piece strikes perfect equilibrium.