WHAT? Flowers - Flora in Contemporary Art & Culture 

WHERE? Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London SW3 4RY

WHEN? Now until 5th May 

WHY GO ? To explore a garden of Eden.  Was there ever a time in history when flowers did not inspire fertile imagery for artists and designers?  Think of Monet and his Water Lilies, O’Keeffe and her Orchids,  Mary Quant with her Daisy motif and Marimekko with those giant red poppy patterns. This glorious exhibition, filling nine galleries, is a cultural garden that begs to be picked over again and again. 

Name an artist and there is an exhibit, from Damien Hirst and Ai Weiwei to Gillian Ayres and Elizabeth Blackadder, who has sold a million floral cards and posters worldwide.  

Planted, bedded and flowering, there are around 500 artworks including an immersive room filled with dried flowers suspended midair reflecting life and death by visual artist Rebecca Louise Law who is famed worldwide for her installations of preserved flora.

Representing flowers as tattoos in body art, designs for album covers in the field of music, in mythology and in the arts and crafts movement, this display chimes with Chelsea’s other celebrated tribute to botany, the legendary Chelsea Flower Show, but it is so much easier to access! 

IN THE KNOW  Bordering the whole show is an exotic floral mural clambering up through the Gallery’s stairwell.  It’s the creation of British based artist Sophie Mess who has transformed urban spaces from tower blocks to city squares, all over Europe.  

Watch her grow her painted bouquet of botanical magic at @sophiemess.  It  greets visitors upon arrival and is one of the exhibition highlights.