Fiori is a photographic series by Dylan Demarchi that explores botanical still life through colour, form and shadow. Presented by Maud Gallery, this viewing room introduces a selection of works from the series.
In Fiori, Demarchi isolates the flower from its natural environment, placing it within a dark and undefined space. Suspended in this way, each form begins to shift between object and symbol, suggesting a meeting point between the physical world and the subconscious.
Light and shadow play a central role in the images. At times the flowers appear to emerge from darkness; at others they seem to dissolve back into it. Familiar botanical forms become unstable, moving between clarity and ambiguity, between what is seen and what is imagined.
The black ground acts not simply as a backdrop but as an open spatial field. Within it, petals fold, bend and radiate outward, gestures that hint at both growth and decay. These small movements give the images a quiet tension, as though the subject exists momentarily between appearance and disappearance.
Through this restrained staging, Demarchi transforms the flower into something more than a botanical specimen. In Fiori, it becomes a point of reflection — a form through which time, perception and memory briefly intersect.
CREDITS
Artist
Dylan Demarchi
Exhibition
Online Viewing Room, series Fiori.
Medium
Archival pigment inkjet prints
Enquiries
Pricing and availability on request via Maud Gallery. Please quote the artwork title.
CURATORIAL NOTE
Fiori sits within a long photographic tradition of still life, yet Demarchi approaches the subject with restraint. Rather than constructing elaborate botanical tableaux, the works rely on reduction — flower, light, black ground — allowing the image to hold through tension, spacing and tone rather than overt symbolism.
The series is less concerned with describing flowers than with examining how photographs behave under conditions of limited information. Darkness becomes structural rather than atmospheric, compressing space and slowing perception. As a result, the images resist immediate readability and instead unfold gradually through sustained looking.
There is also a measured instability within the works. Some arrangements feel delicately held together, while others verge on collapse or dispersal. This balance between control and impermanence gives the series its emotional register without ever becoming sentimental. What emerges is a body of work that treats still life not as decoration, but as a disciplined exercise in attention.
