Still Life with Artificial Flowers

© Hurvin Anderson. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2025. Image credit: Government Art Collection

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‘Still Life with Artificial Flowers’ evokes a snapshot of the artist’s mother’s front room in Birmingham. The vase depicted at its centre was a prized possession that travelled with the artist’s mother from Jamaica. Set against the warm, deep red, flocked wallpaper and atop elaborate lace doilies, the heavily patterned ‘kitsch’ aesthetic acts as a nod to ‘pop’ culture, elevating inexpensive everyday objects. The reverence afforded these items shows them as indicators of luxury and comfort, marking the front room as the best room in the house. Artificial flowers (in a glass vase) are mentioned in ‘The Front Room: Migrant Aesthetics in the Home’ (Michael McMillan and Stuart Hall, 2009) as one of the listed ‘top ten’ items found in a West Indian family front room.

Government Art Collection

London

Title

Still Life with Artificial Flowers

Date

2018

Medium

screenprint

Measurements

H 75.2 x W 56 cm

Accession number

18777/1

Acquisition method

commissioned by the Government Art Collection for the Robson Orr TenTen Award 2018, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission

Work type

Print

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Government Art Collection

Old Admiralty Building, Admiralty Place, London, Greater London SW1A 2BL England

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