Paintings and Writting By: Hollie Puterbaugh
“Within the Garden” is a series of artwork that displays an interpretation of flowers in the human form along with the sun, the sky, and the world around them that allows them to grow and prosper. When I first decided I wanted to create my series, “Within the Garden”, I had no idea where to start. I knew I wanted to create a series of paintings that all interrelate somehow in a pleasing way. I originally was going to keep it simple and paint women figures with flowers, however I later decided to add underlying themes and styles such as zodiac signs and art nouveau.
"Within The Garden" Featuered in Over Magazine's 1st Issue
Layout By: Darren Dobbson and Hollie Puterbaugh
Art nouveau is a type of art that has always been beautiful to me so I wanted to create a series that showcased that style in a way that only I could do. My number one influence for this series was Alphonse Mucha, a well-known Art Nouveau artist. After looking at his work, I decided to take bits and pieces of his style that I liked to bring into my pieces. The beginning of this series had art nouveau as a very prominent style. As I went on, I decided to change the style of art nouveau to a sub-theme to focus more on how the form of the women and the daintiness of the flowers and vines work together. This series of pieces, among other pieces I have created, have always had a fragile and dainty style because that is the style I tend to gravitate to. Looking back on the pieces I created, I am very happy with the artistic decision I made to keep it simple even though I love the striking style of art nouveau.
Along with art nouveau, I also included zodiac signs as a sub-theme of this series. Originally I was going to portray zodiac signs very literally, however I decided that painting parts of nature such as flowers and vines would be an elegant way of portraying zodiac signs in my work. I did a lot of research about astrology; what planet rules each sign, what earthly element is prominent in each sign, and what flowers correspond with each sign. Gathering all of this information helped me immensely with deciding what elements of zodiac signs I wanted to include in my pieces.
In the end I decided to only showcase 6 out of the 12 pieces I completed in the magazine. I made this decision because this series had been a huge trial and error for me and I hope to redo some of the pieces that I am unhappy with in the future. Ultimately I believe “Within The Garden” is very “me” and I am glad that I had the opportunity to show it to the many people who read Over Magazine.