Severed Beauty is a series of sculptured encaustic flowers fashioned from synthetic textile and encased in natural beeswax.  These flowers focus attention on the chemical floral industry and its cultivation of magnificent blooms destined solely for amputation from their roots and display as icons of beauty. 

 

A fine powder dusts each of these flower’s petals, drawing attention to the environmental threat posed by toxic pesticides used in the commercial floral industry. The use of chemicals to cultivate elegant flora raises serious health concerns for low-wage workers, consumers and especially for the fragile bees which pollinate the flowers. 

 

These exquisite, detached floral heads are lifeless, boxed and sealed by beeswax – symbolically and ironically imprisoned by the very bees they threaten.