Emily Morgan - Painting - 2024
About me:
Hi, I’m Emily! I’m from Connecticut, and I’m a rising sophomore at MassArt. Though I’m majoring in painting, I would describe myself as someone who loves to explore and use a wide variety of media in their work. I enjoy using my art to represent nature and the world around me, with some surrealistic twists!
Project: Family Roots
Family Roots will be a mixed media, 2D and 3D combination piece that will display the breadth of diversity in nature through begonias, showing many different species that while different looking, all fall into the same genus of Begonia. I keep many houseplants and begonias are some of my favorites, which is what led me to picking them as the focus for this project, that and the fact that they are extremely diverse. I plan to use a canvas panel as a base and add on the begonia leaves and stems which I will craft from paper mache and wire. I will paint them as realistically as possible, especially to show off the wide range of patterning and color that many begonias display on their leaves. I also plan to add roots which I will knot together in order to show how connected they are, though they may appear different.
Fun Fact:
There are currently over 1,800 species of begonia within the begonia genus, but that doesn’t mean each species look the same! All rex begonias, a very popular species for plant keepers has at least 50 well known varieties, with new ones being cultivated seemingly every day. I’ve had a few and while they can be very finicky with their humidity, they’re gorgeous plants with shimmery leaves and bold patterns.
My progress so far!
So far I’ve mostly been researching and compiling which begonia species I want to represent and which varieties of those. There’s too many to choose from! Here’s some photos of what I’ve found so far, and I encourage you to look up any of these that catch your eye, as many begonias are easy to keep houseplants with more varieties than I may show!
Begonia Rex
Begonia Maculata Wightii
Begonia Microsperma
Begonia Coccinea