Florae Fantasies

Towers via sweetstation.com

Daydreaming — we all do it. Certainly it is not one of the more pro­duc­tive or effi­cient fac­ul­ties of the human psy­che. These spon­ta­neous mean­der­ings are how­ever,  vital to the health of our emo­tive core. The exis­tence of these oth­er­worldly fan­tasies is what makes the monot­o­nies of our rou­tines bearable.

Daydreaming hap­pens when we look at the mes­mer­iz­ing images of Petra Borner. Such an ethe­real reac­tion to her work would seem to be the design of the artist.  Although she cur­rently works out of East London, Ms. Borner spent many child­hood sum­mers by the Baltic Sea sewing, weav­ing and hand-dyeing fab­rics in the small town of Kalmar, Sweden. Currently bound to her urban sur­round­ings, the inspi­ra­tion for her col­lec­tion is a return to the pas­toral tran­quil­ity of her youth. She is stirred by flora, ani­mals and other organic occurrences.

Petra Borner stud­ied Fashion at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. Her early pro­fes­sional posi­tions were with Seraph-Sherald Lamden in London and Susan Cianciolo in New York. She soon real­ized that Illustration was her true pas­sion, yet one can see the influ­ences of pat­tern and fab­ric in her trade­mark style. She has devel­oped truly ver­sa­tile tech­niques that delve into var­ied media. Cut-paper col­lages, print­mak­ing and tex­tile art are but a few of her vehi­cles. Her impres­sive client list includes Lulu Guinness, Elle, Penguin Books, Habitat, IKEA, Louis Vuitton, Cacherel and Selvedge. Rumor has it that one of her new projects involves snowboards.

Daydreaming — we can­not stop float­ing off into Ms. Borner’s mys­te­ri­ous realms when con­fronted with her botan­i­cal beings and jolt­ing color palettes. She is a mas­ter designer of color/shape/texture/space. The hyp­notic qual­i­ties of her intrin­si­cally tum­bling and entwin­ing com­po­si­tions are euphor­i­cally phantasmagorical.

What can we say? We are spellbound.

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