Under the weight of the flowers

Memory is something that surprises you; it’s your identity, it’s yourself, but it only comes through sometimes. And you never know when it will come. It’s like an eruption. ‘ - Simone Fattal A new collection of images from Stephanie O’Connor captures the delicate fecundity of Spring. O’Connor scoured urban cities for flora, the urban concrete city densely layered with histories and populated by transitory residents who bloom and fade like seasons. Cropped close-ups blur the boundaries of human and floral forms, creating an urban garden of light and intricate texture, dense with memory of the lush gardens of O’Connor’s childhood in Aotearoa New Zealand – and the familial intimacy to be found there. Colours move like the memory of a fragrance – rich, layered; their gentle temporal fade ruptured by new waves of remembering. Drawing on the late poet/artist Etel Adnan’s love of flowers (for they ‘shine stronger / than the sun’) and the fragile knowledge of their temporariness (‘their eclipse means the end of / Times’), O’Connor dwells in the present moment, the active verb of Spring, these graceful blooms and their human beholders stilled in a dream-like dawn celebrating new life.