Ophelia, is a photographic installation of freshly cut flowers, tinged with the aroma of death and decay.

To create Ophelia, I began by photographing an extravagant bouquet of roses, irises, gladioli and lilies against a dense black velvet back ground. I placed the bouquet in a horizontal position as if cut down or fallen, to embody the traditional values of femininity; beauty, vulnerability, inferiority. The bouquet is by implication a female corpse. It is Ophelia’s bouquet and, at the same time, it is the drowned Ophelia.

I then separated and photographed the individual buds, blooms and petals from the bouquet. In the darkroom I manipulated the colour to give the flowers a dark and deathly cold blue cast. To further emphasise the funereal quality of the work, I framed the photographs in heavy black frames.

Inspired by the drowned Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Botticelli’s compositional strategy of compressing and scattering flowers; and the depiction of flowers floating downstream in Millais’ Ophelia; the installation Ophelia, is comprised of a large bouquet and singular buds, blooms and petals drifting and scattering across the wall, as if dispersed by the elements of water or wind.