Floral sculpture artist Jennifer Latour uses her skills as a special effects makeup artist to construct ‘new species’ of plants from locally sourced fresh flowers and plants. We asked Jennifer a few questions to find out more about her work:

Tell us about yourself: where did your creative journey begin, and what led you to becoming an artist?
I have a vivid memory of being quite obsessed with The Wind in the Willows pop up book. It was the first book that I remember having dreams about and I owe my vivid imagination to that, no doubt.
Music videos were a huge influence from the beginning, to me it’s the perfect blend of art, cinema, fashion, set design etc. Artists like Chris Cunningham, Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer to name a few were the firsts blowing my mind with their incredible visual candy. I didn’t grow up with anyone to talk to about what inspired me, so I just kept the creative side mostly to myself until I moved to the UK in 2003. Once there it was like a bomb went off inside me and I was creating with pretty much anything I touched. As someone who needs a lot of visual stimulation the city is a playground of inspiration and endless stories.

In 2006 I started experimenting with photography and I fell in love with the medium. I started creating photo projects in the style of film stills which was a great way to combine all the things I loved. The more experimenting I did the more I knew that there was no going back to containing my creativity.
What draws you to working with flowers?
Flowers have the most beautiful and sometimes equally frustrating elements to work with. Overall it’s the challenge I like the most, they require a delicate touch and I have such a small window to manipulate them before they start wilting. The scent is of course the best part and I absolutely love the mess it creates!

Can you tell us about how you create your sculptures? How do you choose which flowers to put together, and the location to set them in?
The balancing and splicing are achieved by creating a series of holes in the stems and plugging them into one another. This might sound simple but the flowers’ weight is a tricky thing. It takes a lot of patience to find what works. For that reason, choosing flowers has to revolve mainly around weight and sometimes I have to splice different parts of flowers together to make the “arm” or “branch” lighter.
The sculptures sometimes come together quite quickly and then the next few will just not want to balance properly at all… and the worst is when everything seems ready to photograph and just as I’m about to take the photo it all falls apart.

When planning a shoot the location comes first then I buy a variety of flowers with an idea of the shapes and color palette I want to achieve. The work always takes its own path from there, especially when I’m dealing with wind and light.

What does a typical day in the life of an artist look like for you?
Completely different from one day to another! I still have a day job as a Special Effects makeup artist for film and television, which is what originally brought me to the UK for work. I don’t take on large show’s anymore so I can split my time between FX and creating my flower sculptures. There’s definitely a correlation between the two works – sticking prosthetics to actors’ faces is a very delicate process and often requires adding multiple colors and textures, and in the end I’m creating characters and creatures, some just scarier than others.
Do you have any favourite gardens to visit or places to immerse yourself in nature?
The province of British Columbia is abundant with natural beauty! So many incredible gardens, forests, and mountains to explore but my favorite place to date is Squamish. It’s the best area for camping and location hunting, and the best part is there is little cell phone reception to most of the areas so you really can detach and feel immersed with no distractions.

What is your favourite or most memorable project you’ve created?
My Irish Species series has to be the most memorable. Ireland has some of the most stunning landscapes I’ve ever seen – truly epic scenery! I can’t say making the work was 100% enjoyable as the wind really beat me down and it was to date the hardest creating I’ve ever done. It definitely made the successful sculptures beyond satisfying and kept me pushing forward with the work but it took so many more hours, patience (and swearing) than any other place I’ve created work.


What are you working on next?
I think I must be a sucker for difficult working conditions – I’m heading back to Ireland in May for three weeks, and I also want to create Species in Iceland. This year will definitely see the Species travelling more and also growing in scale. I have many variations of the work floating around in my head and 2025 will be filled with experimentation and evolution of the work. I also have something exciting in the works for spring but that’s all I can say for now.

Finally, as we are the Garden Museum, can you tell us about your relationship with plants, gardening and nature?
My relationship is purely one of artistic inspiration. I make it a point to pay attention to the flora around me on a daily basis – I’m quite obsessed with shapes, textures and colours and so the inspiration is abundant and all around us in nature. Instagram has been wonderful for witnessing all the incredible flora artists around the world! It’s truly mind blowing what’s being created out there!
I don’t have my own garden yet but I love the wild British type. I can see myself having a garden like that with all different types of species and hopefully including some of mine scattered in there.
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Find out more: opendoors.gallery/artists/jennifer-latour
Follow Jennifer on Instagram: @bonjourlatour