Plant pigment

Following an apprenticeship with Mahaveer Swami in Rajasthan, India, these plant drawings were created using only pigments derived from the plants themselves. Their delicate nature and inevitable fading speak to the impermanence at the heart of all living things.

 

OR ES - ES OR - RO SE - ER OS

Rose petal and rose leaf pigment on acid-free paper, 40 x 60 cm , framed, 2019

Rose ERos.jpg

OR ES - ES OR - RO SE - ER OS

This is a watercolor made purely with the pigments of a rose flower.

The poster spells out a chemical reaction. If a molecule for example RO and SE binds to 2 receptors, to give a smell of ROSE, then the mirror-image ESOR molecule will find it impossible to bind to those receptors. Instead, it will bind to OR and ES and the mirror image will bind to ORES. In all this molecular movement, what remains is the vibrational frequency, which ultimately smells of ROSE.