Nick Knight: Roses from my Garden

19 May – 31 Oct 2021

11am-5pm

Coach House gallery

This is a past exhibition

This exhibition of Nick Knight’s large-scale, painterly photographs displays the rose as an enduring symbol of beauty.

British fashion photographer, Nick Knight’s constant desire to experiment, push boundaries and challenge his audience has led him to take up a new subject, the classic rose – but expressed in an entirely new way.

His ‘Roses from my Garden’ series is inspired by the work of 16th and 17th century still life painters like Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan van Huysum, but these large-scale works could not be more contemporary, dramatising the timelessness of nature.

Nick Knight cuts selected roses straight from his garden and arranges them specifically, using only daylight to illuminate his subject. Photographed on an iPhone, the digital images are enlarged and filtered through software that uses AI to infill the space between pixels. What appears at first glance to be a historical approach to flower photography is actually at the very cutting edge of imaging technology.

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‘Roses from my Garden’ references the rich history of classical painting whilst also looking towards the exciting world of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.
Nick Knight

The works complement their surroundings at Waddesdon and its important Victorian garden, created by four generations of Rothschilds who themselves were passionate about horticulture, and in particular, the rose.

Flowers are laden with symbolism, none more so than roses, for their associations with love, faith, and truth. There is something both intensely real and allegorical about these images, as they capture a moment in the brief life of a rose, and in some cases as they start to decay.

Find out more about Nick Knight>