Hugo Rittson Thomas Presents
Wildflowering: The Queen’s Wildflower Meadows
A new exhibition from fine-art photographer Hugo Rittson Thomas inspired by the wildflower meadows of Great Britain, notably those that are part of the Coronation Meadows project, will be on display at Philip Mould & Company from the 15th November - 26th November. Also on show is Rittson Thomas’ newest series; ‘Avalon’, the first time this collection has been publicly exhibited.
Rittson Thomas says the premise of his wildflower photography project aims to “celebrate the rich botanical heritage of the wildflowers and unique meadows and to elevate them not only as the stars of the show, but also as valuable and irreplaceable forms of life on our green planet.”
His famed mirror technique, at the heart of his 2015 exhibition The Queen’s People, is used once again to showcase the delicacy of flowers from multiple angles. Also drawing inspiration from the work of Horst P. Horst, Robert Mapplethorpe and Nick Knight; Rittson Thomas’s artistic eye allows us to look at these flowers anew, beautifully showcasing their exhilarating patterns, colours, textures and shapes. The project also raises the question of conservation in Britain, meadows are one of the UK’s most species-rich and biodiverse habitats, supporting nearly 800 types of flowers and plants, along with 400 species of pollinators and other insects.
Today, surviving fragments of flower-rich meadows and pastures only account for 1% of UK land as we have lost an alarming 7.5 million acres since the 1930s. Most are now too small to qualify for legal protection, meaning that ancient meadows that have existed for a century can disappear in a morning under the plough.
The exhibition includes essays from a range of high-profile contributors, who each muse on their connection and relationship with wildflower meadows; including Philip Mould, Alan Titchmarsh, Dan Pearson, Miranda Brooks, Julian Fellowes and Nicholas Coleridge.
The exhibition is scented by Moro Dabron’s newly launched fragrance: Vita; which aims to transport the wearer back to the Elizabethan tower of Sissinghurst Castle in the 1930’s, where writer and poet, Vita Sackville-West spent a great deal of her time writing. Surrounded by old books, period wood, fresh flowers and cuttings from the magnificent gardens which the room overlooked.
