RHGBAD

Ghost Orchids by Siobhan Healy is a beautiful and thought-provoking project that uses the quality and delicacy of glass to capture the stunning natural form and deeper issues of the ghost orchid. 

 

The ghost orchid, Dendrophylax lindenii, was thought to be long extinct. Yet another species wiped out by an ever-changing climate in constant turmoil, that tests natural habitats and species to the limit and often past it. But in 2009 this elegant plant was sighted again, singing out from the deep dark forest in pure white wisps of petals, dancing on the edge of extinction. There, but so close to being gone it is a ghost from the forest’s past.

 

Siobhan Healy was inspired by this fragility and beauty, capturing it in glass. Each flower is hand blown, built of individual, delicate glass petals and piece by piece fabricated to bloom. Unlike any other material glass is delicate - a slip away from smashing, forms that once were, gone, fragmented and un retrievable. 

 

The piece is in its nature transparent, we are able to look through these flowers as if they are not there. Only a faint form, there but not fully, flirting with complete disappearance. 

 

This piece freezes these beautiful flowers in time and history. The gentle movement of the flowers balanced on slender stems captured and celebrated. The glass flowers are positioned in glass cases usually reserved for tropical birds held in flight, suspended in time for viewers in museums to gaze at wonderingly. This shows the level of appreciation that is deserved, as rare as birds rich with colour, is the ghost orchid. Much like many rare species the Orchid has been brought to the edge of extinction by man-made climate turmoil and is now cultivated, life support of species that are no longer able to fly.

 

The Ghost Orchid is a truly beautiful piece that reminds us of the delicacy, fragility and true wonder of nature that we all should learn to live in harmony with.