Wilma Tabacco, Caprice (Cappriccio) (detail) 1000 hand-made silk, satin and cotton roses. Installation photo, Saying it with Flowers, RMIT Gallery, 1999

Installation photo, Saying it with Flowers, RMIT Gallery, 1999

Wilma Tabacco ’Confines’ 1997-98. Installation photo, Saying it with Flowers, RMIT Gallery, 1999

Irene Barberis ‘Fresh Leaves/Seven Boxes’ 1996-8. Installation photo, Saying it with Flowers, RMIT Gallery, 1999

Installation photo, Saying it with Flowers, RMIT Gallery, 1999

Installation photo, Saying it with Flowers, RMIT Gallery, 1999

Saying it With Flowers

“…a flower is a sign of beauty which nature offers. But the beauty of a flower becomes a sign, and this becomes significant by the alteration of that flower’s nature…” (Edward Colless)

Using floral motifs as a symbolic image is a long established artistic cross-cultural tradition. Irene Barberis and Wilma Tobacco’s installations focus on floral motifs and the gradual loss through time, of the importance of symbolic meanings. Barberis alludes to the redemption of corrupt nature through lifting veils of historic meaning in search of truth. For Tobacco, nature cannot transcend its worldliness.