Anita Gwynn: Without Bees There Would Be No Flowers

About

On her new exhibition in our Magazine Space, artist Anita Gwynn writes: “I like to draw the flowers of the wayside. The tenacity of the flowers that pop up in the urban environment is to be celebrated.  I love the flowers that come up amongst the litter and the debris of life around a station or a bus stop.  Suddenly something jewel like catches your eye and you are cheered.  Each flower has a use and a story. They are food to us, the bees, butterflies and insects, or have healing properties that have been used for centuries.

I cannot draw the plants without thinking about their survival.  They need pollinators. I work at the nearby Roots and Shoots (Training for Young People, Environmental Education for All) which has a wildlife garden. There is a bee hotel and I have been amazed by what I have learned. As a result I have become very interested in the solitary bees that you find there.

My work is a celebration of the relationship of the bees and the plants and of the sanctuary that the wildlife garden has provided to help these pollinators survive.”