Rosie Yacob - Decaying Lily & Scarlet Threads Of Life






Decaying Lily

I created a lily that interpreted the themes of decay from Oscar Wilde's ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’

“Decay fascinates me more,” Dorian says in the book. This was the quote that I chose as the inspiration to my lily. The lily a symbol of purity, it’s beauty decaying with the passing of time.

I created the lily petals out of polymer clay. I used foraged pieces for the stem. I settled on a moss covered branch that gave the feeling of decay juxtaposed with the smooth clay of the petal section of the lily.

To add to the sense of decay, and as a way to blend the branch and main flower head together I used delicate black pen lines, building up in intensity on some parts of the lily petals, to depict rot setting in and overtaking the lily much like the beauty of Dorian Gray in his portrait aging and overtaken by Dorian's transgressions.




Scarlet Threads Of Life

“He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life and to weave them into the pattern; to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering.”

This was the quote from ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray' that served as the basis for the concept of my second lily sculpture.

As someone who depends on regular blood transfusions, the words “scarlet threads of life" connected to me in a personal way. The importance of veins pumping blood throughout the body made possible and provided by blood through IV lines; supporting life. I interpreted this in my second lily by drawing red lines weaving into one another to cover the petals of the lily. Symbolising the veins and pumping life to the lily.


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