STORY BEHIND THE ART OF JOHN PASTORIZA-PIÑOL
19th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists & The Horticultural Society of New York
Double Yellow Hellebore
Helleborus x hybridus
‘Please don’t select the double yellow hellebore, it will be difficult!’ Vincent Jeannerot said to me when I attended one of his workshops at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. How could I not take up this challenge! The first time I saw a yellow flowering hellebore was at the RHS exhibition, London Winter series at Lawrence hHall back in January of 2004. Ashwood nurseries UK, who are famous for amazing hybrids, had an equally impressive display of recent release hybrids. Back then I was unable to purchase any plants and could only take photos; it would be years before I would see anything like these in Australia.
The Post Office Nursery, which specializes in growing hellebores, supplied a wonderful selection of flowering plants for Vincent’s class, including this rarely seen double yellow hellebore. While no other people were remotely interested in doing this challenging plant, I saw something I love to do, yellow flowers.
With many other teachers, when they see me in their class they always ask as to why am I there, to which I always respond with ‘You can never stop learning!’ I really enjoy how other artists approach teaching. Even though Vincent was very pleased and surprised with the final study, I never completed the work and it languished in my folio for another two or three years. Occasionally I would show students my folio and the yellow hellebore was always extremely popular.
Last year was rather unproductive due to my work/life balance and consequently my body of incomplete works started to pile up. Towards the end of the year and after much encouragement from many of the students, I had the motivation to revisit all those works which were a half or quarter finished.
This piece was unique as I was able to play with the initial study and build a full composition. What started with adding a leaf led to adding another leaf, then another flower and then finally a root system. Those who have taken my class will be able to see evidence of the concentric ellipses and even the vortex, two geometric models I use to help with more accurate drawing of flowers and leaves. The composition also incorporates a narrative on the artistic direction of my art and the departure from traditional botanical art, which is making me even more of a maverick. The deliberate direction of the two smaller flowers faces the opposite direction to the full bloom, almost as if they are shunning it, however the connectivity of the leaves and the unification to the stem still bring all units together, as if suggesting that even though we have our traditions grounded we can still innovate the art form whilst maintaining the underlying principles of the genre.
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Read more about this artist’s work: 18th Annual International