New York Botanical Garden, Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden
FLEUR NOIR: SHADOWS OF PEGGY
In Fleur Noir: Shadows of Peggy, I explore the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden through a lens of high-contrast monochrome realized through silver gelatin printing. By stripping away the garden’s celebrated palette, the series focuses on the “architectural” integrity of the roses—their sharp thorns, delicate translucence, and the rhythmic silhouettes they cast against the garden’s ironwork.
This body of work pays homage to the garden’s history, originally conceived by landscape architect Beatrix Farrand. The “Noir” aesthetic reimagines these blooms not as simple symbols of beauty, but as dramatic subjects captured in moments of stark light and deep shadow. Each image seeks to reveal the silent, enduring forms of the garden that remain once color is removed, capturing what I call the “Shadows of Peggy”—the elegant, ephemeral spirit of a landscape that has evolved over a century. Through this series, I invite the viewer to find a different kind of vibrancy in the grey scale: a symphony of texture, form, and light.
