MARY NEWCOMB

Something strange is at play in the paintings of Mary Newcomb. In one of her better-known works, , a landscape painted in 1988, we meet a woman as she passes through a golden clearing in a field, the dark shadow of a church spire visible in the distance. So far, so pastoral. Nothing unusual to see here. That is until our eyes adjust and we realise the woman’s whole body is dwarfed by her enormous bouquet – size-wise, it’s practically on par with that church spire. Only her legs poke out beneath a firework-blast of red and white blooms that she holds before us like a hypnotist’s wheel. In the Victorian era, when the language of flowers (known as “floriography”) was used to communicate certain meanings, Sweet