Garth Glazier’s Botanical Illustrations Teach Us to Look Closer

Phosphor's Garth Glazier has created a series of illustrations depicting common invasive weeds and wildflowers in order to highlight their inherent beauty. The illustrations were based on photos Garth took of a meadow along a busy major avenue, near where he lives in Oakland County in the US state of Michigan.

"On a practical level, these graphics were designed as illustrations for seed packets, but are also intended as 12 unique explorations in compositional symmetry and asymmetry. In each intimate view a flower is reduced to a more geometrical form while still retaining the nuances and unique variations in shape and form particular to the species," said Garth. The illustrations have since been turned into a series of posters and used as fabric prints.

Each plant Garth illustrated has a medicinal benefit and/or value to agriculture and the environment, and by highlighting these often overlooked plants, the artist is inviting us to pay closer attention to the natural world around us, particularly in urban environments.

Garth Glazier is "an illustrator by profession and a fine artist at heart". As such, his work reflects an eclectic mix of influences from the world of illustration and fine art which, in the case of these botanical illustrations, includes Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Orlando Arocena and Stanley Chow.