Framed
“Depicting both local and foreign blooms which flower at different seasons, these re-worked historical paintings speak, not only of the fleeting nature of time implicit in such calendar illustrations, but also of a disposability - as cheap printed images for consumption— which belies the luxury, trade and colonial wealth implied by their historic sources."
(Aliki Braine, October2025)
Aliki Braine: Flower Works
Online Exhibition presented for Photo Oxford Festival 2025
This exhibition brings together selected works from two recent series by artist and art historian Aliki Braine - Turbulence (after…) and Twelve Months of the Year - both of which reimagine the visual language of seventeenth-century Dutch flower painting. The presentation coincides with Photo Oxford Festival 2025, whose theme, Truth, resonates deeply with Braine’s practice and her exploration of the layered realities behind photographic and art historical images.
Through her Flower Works, Braine examines the ways in which truth is constructed, reproduced, and mediated within the Western art canon. Working with colour reproductions of Dutch flower compositions sourced from old exhibition catalogues and second-hand calendars, she transforms these familiar, mass-produced images into complex meditations on authenticity, perception, and value.
In Twelve Months of the Year, Braine layers and weaves together two calendar reproductions - both derived from paintings in the Ashmolean’s collection - to create six hybrid works that speak to the passage of time and the circulation of imagery. Their digital-like pixelation and geometrical overlays evoke the visual noise of contemporary media, while alluding to the histories of trade, wealth, and colonialism embedded within the original still life paintings.
In Turbulence (after…), Braine uses a rotary cutter to slice and rearrange photographic reproductions of historical bouquets, creating swirling, fractured compositions that both honour and disrupt their sources. The resulting images expose the tension between beauty and artifice, inviting viewers to question the notion of truth within these “perfect” arrangements.
Together, these series invite reflection on how art history is mediated and reinterpreted, and how truth itself is constructed through images. Braine’s interventions blur the boundaries between image and object, past and present offering a compelling reconsideration of how we encounter and value images in an age of endless reproduction.
As part of Photo Oxford Festival 2025, Aliki Braine will be in conversation with An Van Camp, Curator of Northern European Art at the Ashmolean Museum, on Friday 25 October at 2pm. The event will explore Braine’s practice and her works currently on temporary loan at the Ashmolean.
Booking is via the Ashmolean website: ashmolean.org/event/artist-aliki-braine-in-conversation
Aliki Braine is represented by Hannah Payne Art. For enquiries, please get in touch.
