Jan Davidsz De Heem

Relevance to my work:

De Heem creates paintings of still life flowers in vases with insects such as flies and butterflies crawling over them. The wilting flowers and the insects represent the brevity of life, whilst the exotic bouquet of flowers (often including tulips which marked the Tulip War in Europe at the time, in which tulips were sold for extortionate prices) represents the consumerist culture that was rife at the time of the Dutch masters and is still appropriate now. This is similar to the theme that I have continued my work on, commenting both on Christian belief and the inevitability of death using flowers and flies as symbolism within my work.