A flower was born

Ring all the bells, sing and tell the people
Everywhere that the flower has come
Light up the sky with your prayers of gladness
And rejoice for the darkness is gone
Throw off your fears let your heart beat freely
At the sign that a new time is born \\ Minnie Riperton

Floral portrait sessions \\ please DM for availability and pricing.

Bloom

..following the example of the bees..

Flower Portraiture

Magic and beauty

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.” — Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings

Creating bespke art for your walls starring you…

The beautiful life...

“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.” W Somerset Maugham — The Painted Veil

Bringing nature home

I believe in God, only I spell it nature” Frank Lloyd Wright.
Bringing nature home with my bespoke floral prints. Pls DM to start the conversation on immortalising your favourite flower…

Bringing nature home

The Very Dark Month

“Anything seems possible at night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep.” — David Almond

The Very Dark Month — prints available to purchase..

The invisible web of stories...

“The universe is one being.
Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories.
Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation.
Do no harm.
Practise compassion.
And do not gossip behind anyone's back - not even seemingly innocent remark!
The words that come out of our mouth do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time.
One man's pain will hurt us all.
One man's joy will make everyone smile.” —Elif Safak

Here they come the beautiful ones...

“When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.” ― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

My favourite flowers are in season and so I am running floral portrait sessions to capture your favourite flowers in bloom - either in your garden or here in my studio. Your flower is giclée printed on hahnemuhle paper giving it a painterly timeless feel ♡ Please DM to find out more ♡

Fragile...

More from my Angelique tulips...

"The unreal is more powerful than the real...it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create." - Chuck Palahniuk

©Alexandra Dao

The social garden

... in south east London currently starring my favourite tulip, the Angelique

© Alexandra Dao

Tulipomania

... walking amongst the tulips with the early evening sun. These are from my favourite social garden here in south east London

“A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower. You didn’t have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else’s on earth. It just is. You are unique because you were created that way. Look at little children in kindergarten. They’re all different without trying to be. As long as they’re unselfconsciously being themselves, they can’t help but shine. It’s only later, when children are taught to compete, to strive to be better than others, that their natural light becomes distorted.” // Marianne Williamson

A thousand blossoms...

.. at Hampton Court

“. . . at this season, the blossom is out in full now, there in the west early. It's a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it's white, and looking at it, instead of saying "Oh that's nice blossom" ... last week looking at it through the window when I'm writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There's no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance ... not that I'm interested in reassuring people - bugger that. The fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.” // Dennis Potter