The Family Begonia
18x24 Original Watercolor on paper
A riotous tangle of leaves, color, and family history.
The angel wing begonia at the heart of this painting began with my Granny, probably sometime in the 1970s. My dad grew a cutting from her plant in the redwood lath house he built beside our patio, where it became part of the lush green backdrop of my childhood. Years later, cuttings continued through the family — including mine, which, naturally, I maintain was the best.
Rather than paint the plant botanically, I wanted to capture what it feels like in memory: abundant, slightly unruly, layered with generations of growth. Deep blue-greens, flashes of chartreuse and turquoise, and scattered pink blossoms crowd together above three vessels, with the brickwork below recalling the cool patio of that old lath house.
The Family Begonia is a painting about inheritance of the ordinary kind — a plant passed from hand to hand until it becomes much more than a plant.
Details
Original watercolor painting
18 × 24 inches
Watercolor on 100% cotton archival watercolor paper
Unframed and unmatted
Signed by the artist
Finished with a protective wax coatcoating
Colors may vary slightly depending on your screen
Ships carefully packaged
