alice mccabe floral artist

FLIPSIDE GARDEN_ SUMMER / WINTER

110 x 140cm

Acrylic and housepaint on canvas

2020

Flipside Gardens were conceived of as learning aids; pieces with which to consider the garden as a whole over the course of a year. They explore the differences between flower availability at the Flower Market and the growing world visible around us.

WHERE IS THE VASE, I

180 x 140 x 2cm

Acrylic and gesso on canvas

This painting is the closest I have got to drawing with paint, which as well as bringing flowers directly into painting as a subject matter, has been a turning point uniting my practices.

On the surface this painting is about the balance of art and flowers and this open floral arrangement is gripped fiercely by two fists balanced on a knife edge. I want to suggest both the beauty and brutality of the floral industry but think the emotional charge behind this work relates more to the fragility of nature and our lack of control over much of life.

This is reflected in the display being contained or protected by this gesso frame or vase which looks slightly clunky and exists in neither the 2D or 3D world. I think the containment is something sought, and title points to space of safety or existence outside of our own individual life concerns, somewhere, some bigger pool to pour oneself into.

The chain holds the flowers at the top and bottom of the display, linking the openness and tightly held areas. Underneath the waterline at the bottom are two soft open areas on the left and right.

BBC GREEN PLANET: LIVING WOodland DISPLAy For EROS

Floral design and execution

Commissioned by The Crown Estate

2022

MESHWORKS WITH AMY CUTLER DEPTFORD X

Creekside Discovery Centre

2023

Our portable experimental cinema was designed as part of a performative after dark event, with torchlight, live projecting ecologies back at the site of origin. We experimented with forms of floral arrangement using creek plants and natural and man-made detritus projected through water gathered on site. We created an altar to findings in the creek and explored these items in relationship to rubbish, e.g supermarket trolley eco-systems, which provide vital structure often for mudbanks and smaller shaols of fish.

A bankside floral hanging is loosely inspired by the embanking of the creek over the last centuries and was made from plants connecting to the area, including hops (which would have been transported in abundance from Kent to breweries) willow, buddleja and Michaelmas daisy (which is celebrated day prior to our performance with feast of Archangel Michael and all the Angels.) These flowers were all sourced locally to Deptford and foraged with permission. Bespoke projection surface within the hanging is inspired by plankton mesh and specimen inspection nets.

AWAJI FLOWER FESTIVAL, Japan: BAMBOO FLOWERS COLLABORATION

Floral display as part of installation designed by Akito Yamamote with bamboo work by Akihiro Mashimo

Commissioned within Tadao Ando’s Awaji Yumebutai or Dream Stage and created with students from Hyogo Prefectural Awaji Landscape Planning and Horticulture Academy.

CIRCUMPOLAR CURRENT

National Maritime Museum for World Oceans Day

Video art exploring balance of our water systems

2020

FIELDWORK I

240 x 210 x 15cm

Acrylic and housepaint on canvas

2020

The concept behind ‘Fieldworks’ is rooted in the philosophy of natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, a self professed ‘do-nothing’ farmer. He advocated for observation and experiments in farming relying on flashes of inspiration over intellectual knowledge, commenting that the minute we think we know nature therein lies the probability we do not and the only option is to go and have another look. This piece aims at capturing this inquisitiveness, whilst also encouraging reconsideration of our individual and collective responsibility towards our environment.

MAT(T)ER

100 x 120 x 5cm

Acrylic, gesso and hand cut milk bottle tops on canvas

This is a portrait exploring the intertwining of my identity and that of my mother.

A painting about my mother and endless felt cycles of existence; in this case a spiral of women, leading back through time.I have been trying to capture this sensation for a while and this pursuit and feeling continues.

Milk bottle tops / petals are hand cut from David Austin rose catalogue (many named after women) and Mucha‘s cherry painting (signature amended to Mutha.)

If this painting were chosen, I would like to suggest a series of up to ten of these paintings as commissions based on peoples‘ mothers. In order to paint them I would work from their references and ephemera, drawing these together around the abstracted frameworks of their bodies.

ZIPCAR: LIVING CAR

Floral design and execution

Commissioned by Manifest photographed by Pin Pep Media

2021

ADVENTITIOUS ROUTES AND RHIZOMES WITH AMY ASH

Fogo Island, Plas Bodfa, Wales and Window 135

2017 through to 2022

Amy Ash (CA) and Alice McCabe (UK / AUS) have been collaborating on creative projects since 2017. Their collaborative work, under the moniker of Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes, looks to the characteristics, language, mythology and historical contexts of plants for guidance. With plants as their mentors, Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes translate plant wisdom through varied methodologies as a means to both disrupt systems and discuss difficult topics that resonate into the realm of human communities. Previous projects have focused on immigration, queer ecologies, and disrupting colonial histories.

During the Cultivar residency Adventitious Routes & Rhizomes created a series of works intended to open discussions on human travel, borders and boundaries. These range from interventions on local touristic signage, to performance and playful pedagogies. In each case, the work centres and translates plant community wisdom and ways of being in the hopes of generating new understandings of how we, as humans, organize ourselves and relate to one another.

Well Lid Making with YOSHI

Learning to make a well lid with Nagaoka Meichiku Bamboo Studio in Kyoto led by Akihiro Mashimo

Funded by the RHS, JGS and DAIWA Foundation I was delighted to go to Japan in 2024 for the first time to discover more about traditional bamboo fencemaking and structural installation work with bamboo.

RHS FLOWER SCHOOL TABLESCAPE DEMONSTRATION

in collaboration with Flowers from the Farm

as part of RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival

2022