Poul Lange

Danish artist living in Los Angeles. ****

About the "Flower People" series:

Our sense of self is often composed of old static memories of life, not life itself. We are out of touch with the delicious, delirious, sensation of simply being alive.

**** Raw materials sit on my work table: century-old photographs, dried plants. I see these as moments of light and life that are magically frozen in time. Traditionally, old photographs and pressed flowers have melancholy overtones. But by juxtaposing these materials in a new synthesis, I forcibly re-animate them. The electric spark of humor and inventiveness causes these dead arts to crackle back to new life and immediacy.

**** As these reflections of lives already lived catch our attention, we breathe our own humanity, humor and joy into them, and we are propelled into appreciating the joy of being alive.

**** Who were these people? What are they now? By adding the floral forms to the old portraits, I try to give the people a new identity and the plants a new purpose. I see a fresh dignity, often tinged with the ridiculous – ordinary people are robbed of their normality and propelled into fabulousness. Should I insult anyone along the way, it is done...

Danish School of Design, Copenhagen.
School of Visual Arts, New York City