Florist
Alison Coates realised she was no longer a florist, or even a floral artist, when she found herself attracted to the string hanging off the growers' stands at the markets rather than the flowers themselves.
''I used to go to the markets and play with other materials, like the wire or the stacked crates,'' she says. ''Then I started collecting objects I found in the street. I was attracted to dead, debris and decaying things.''
Coates is one of a new breed of artists who have shifted from arranging flowers to creating floral-inspired sculptures.
After selling her flower shop in Paddington 20 years ago, she now has a barn-sized studio above a furniture restorer in Woollahra. It looks like a home for orphaned building materials and, Coates says, these days, she feels like ''an eternal scrap collector''.
Stacked against the walls are plywood sheets, weathered to a satiny finish, corrugated iron sheets, slabs of timber and rolls of wire. There are discarded bones, fibreglass, copper, electrical cords and dried natural materials, too. She fashions the scraps into collages and sculptures, evoking landscape, emotions and rhythm.
A collage of wire, echidna quills and white bones in rhythmic patterns is mounted on old roof slate. It's similar to one she's done for the entrance to the luxury Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa in the Blue Mountains.
Lisa Ormaggi, who wrote a profile on Coates for the artist's last exhibition,
Crossing the Reef at Chippendale's NG Art Gallery, describes her as ''an avant-garde florist-cum-contemporary installation artist''.
Coates was initially attracted to flowers because of their texture. ''Working with fleshy things is wonderfully exciting; the squeakiness, being knee-keep in leaves.'' She still adores flowers and says that's the problem. ''If there were a Flowers Anonymous, I should go to it. For every job I'd do, I'd come home with double the flowers I need.
''Flowers cost a bomb. You're limited by budget and compromise. To do beautiful things with flowers, you need a patron if you're going to be an artist.''
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/turn-over-a-new-leaf-20110818-1iyof.html#ixzz1VXlFxPGY
Florist in Malaysia
