Flowers carry heavy meaning throughout many cultures. Botanical illustrations, floriography, and still life paintings are just a few ways we have used flowers to better understand ourselves, each other, and how we process the natural world. Prevalent on fabric, wallpaper, prints, paintings, and so much more, people have chosen to adorn their home and lives with floral imagery for hundreds of years.

 

Merill Comeau takes discarded domestic textiles and turns them into something greater than their separate pieces. Through the layering of fabric and stitching, she adds a thoughtful beauty to these repurposed textiles. Sprawling compositions break from the traditional rectangular shape, allowing the flowers to run more freely. Pieces like What Lies Beneath and Sleep My Pretty 1 illustrate the easily recognizable beauty of flowers while acknowledging the darker side of life creeping in.

 

Merill’s reference to the domestic sphere is a true understanding, one that is not sullied with rose-colored glasses of idealized perfection, but rather sees the domestic for what it truly is, a place where one makes memories, mistakes, and lives life—for better and worse—paying homage to everything that came before.

 

–Lauren Sinner