smoking flowers,

A contemporary still-life composition painted in oils and weighted with symbolism. Flowers have long been personified as proxies for human emotion, character, and social order, forming a visual language that has persisted across the history of still-life painting.

The vase has frequently been interpreted as a symbol of the feminine or natural form, while individual flowers carry established associations: lilies with purity, tulips with wealth and excess. Seventeenth-century Dutch still-life painting refined this symbolic system, using carefully selected objects to communicate societal status and moral reflection. Books signified knowledge, pearls wealth, and skulls functioned as memento mori, positioning material abundance against the certainty of impermanence.

Drawing on this lineage, wilting flowers arranged in a vase become a metaphor for contemporary society’s fragile trajectory. The composition reflects a quiet erosion of communal values in favour of material pursuit. A muted palette and tempered atmosphere invite contemplation, while each flower is rendered as a distinct, almost sentient presence.

The inclusion of cigarettes introduces a deliberate tension. Paired with the delicacy of flowers, they embody a living paradox. This contrast reflects contemporary contradictions—where rituals of pleasure, consumption, and harm coexist—questioning how fragility is preserved or neglected within modern life.

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