THE BACKSTORY

For Donna Morin, flowers became a lifeline during the pandemic. While isolation and loss made bright colors feel impossible, her family brought bouquets when they visited, small offerings of beauty and hope during a devastating time. Those gestures stayed with her, eventually transforming into delicate woodcut prints of blooms on thin Japanese paper.

Morin had been experimenting with ink work on and off before the pandemic, but she couldn't find what she was looking for until she began combining ink paintings with these floral woodcuts. The flowers, printed and cut out, are adhered to Arches 88 paper and layered with bold geometric blocks of black ink. The result is Nature's Neutral, a collage that balances organic form against stark modernist structure.

The composition shows a strong nod to Motherwell's influence clearly. After seeing his exhibition online in 2023, Morin found direction for her collage practice, inspired by his use of printed words and numbers alongside expressive ink work. But where Motherwell focused on the sea's expressiveness and never included flowers or printed over his ink, Morin charts her own course. She places nature at the center, letting floral forms rise from geometric foundations like growth emerging from grief.

Nature's Neutral captures this tension between restraint and abundance. The monochromatic palette honors the pandemic's somber mood, yet the flowers persist, detailed and vital. A small rectangle of golden orange punctuates the lower right corner, the only warm note in an otherwise austere composition. It's a reminder of those family visits, those flowers brought to her door, proof that even in the darkest seasons, nature offers its quiet neutrality and stubborn renewal.