Anneliese Sullivan

Traces of Paradise
113 Imagined Flowers (Paper Cut-Outs)

During the post-war years, with five siblings sleeping in one room, the landscape of my native Bavaria washed away the hardships of home. I remember playing in mountain meadows full of wild flowers – like the yellow Dotterblumen (Marsh Merigold) and the sky-blue Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not). With clanging cow bells and the towering Wendelstein ridge off in the distance, nature felt wondrous and protective.

After 25-years as an interior designer, mainly focused on the reconstruction of Berlin, I wanted to create a series that honored the German handiwork tradition, and my early embrace of nature.

The result is “Traces of Paradise,” a flower-cut series. With nods to the baroque painter Georg Flegel, and Matisse’s, 'scissor drawings," I have created 113 imagined flowers-representing fertility, beauty and the animating forces of life itself.

George Washington University, MFA