The American Flag

The American Flag series comprises photographic works constructed from thousands of real flower petals assembled into full-scale flag sculptures and photographed underwater using analogue large-format techniques.

Each work is produced entirely in-camera without digital manipulation. Submerged within controlled studio conditions, the flower structures partially disintegrate during exposure, producing distortions of light, colour and surface tension across the image plane.

The resulting works position the flag simultaneously as image, sculpture and unstable material object. Drawing from the historical language of vanitas painting, the series examines impermanence, national symbolism and the physical fragility of constructed ideals.

Select works from the series were developed further through oil and varnish processes, extending the works beyond photography into hybrid object-based surfaces.