Limited Edition C-Type Photographic Print. 2025. Signed & Numbered. Unframed.

Framed prints £650 available on enquiry: mat@matcollishaw.com

Current exhibition in London: https://matcollishaw.com/exhibitions/move-37/

Orchids, through Pouyannian mimicry, showcase the ingenuity of natural selection. By simulating the appearance of courting insects, these flowers exploit their pollinators to ensure their reproduction. This process is not consciously designed but the result of countless generations of evolutionary trial and error. Similarly, generative AI mirrors this phenomenon, employing digital algorithms to simulate mutation, creating images that evolve and transform through iterative processes.

In the tradition of 17th-century still life painting—traditionally a meditation on mortality—these AI-generated artworks of mutated flower-insect hybrids blend nature’s elegance with the uncanny. Petals morph into wings, stems twist into antennae, and the once-familiar becomes unnerving. Created by algorithms trained on diverse flower species, these images echo the promise and peril of synthetic biology, where human innovation blurs the boundaries between natural evolution and artificial design.

This fusion of organic and artificial provokes profound ethical and ecological questions, suggesting a world where biological manipulation redefines life itself. Like still lifes that once warned of the fragility of existence, these hybrid forms serve as a modern memento mori, reminding us of a future shaped as much by human ambition as by nature’s inherent unpredictability.