Mikel Covey

My Flora Series is the result of a progressing photographic exploration of botanicals. I was driven to the subject at first by my alarm about the threatened natural world and a need to depict the richness of that world by a fresh act of creation. Each work in the series is meant to provoke and engage the viewer with a novel way of seeing these natural subjects.

I approach this work with a photographer’s perspective of light and reality but my final images are not limited to realistic depiction. I want each of my works to have the effect of both symbolizing and laying bare the essential integrity and beauty of each subject; to transform but obscuring neither wildness nor beauty.

I shoot Flora Series photographs in the wild or in the studio, then I mold my images digitally, with a subtle, mottled patina that has an enriching and transcendent effect. I make each limited edition archival pigment print on fine art printmaking paper.