Kemet, my garden of origins

It all starts in a cup. The ones my grandmother used to make me: lime blossom, verbena, always homemade. She taught me that plants aren't only there to look pretty. 
Then came Bali, its plants, its remedies, and Balinese people who passed on far more than recipes. But that is another story…

A book at the right moment

Just before leaving for Egypt, I found Par les chemins des Indes by Katia Astafieff on my bookshelf. She follows the botanist Victor Jacquemont, village after village. Reading it, it became obvious:

"I said to myself: but I love plants. I have to satisfy that desire."

What if I painted the plants of Egypt? Digging deeper, I discovered that the ancient Egyptians called their land Kemet, "the Black Land" , after the dark silt the Nile floods left on the fields. My garden had found its name.

Four plants, four stories

The blue water lily. The water lily of the Nile, "not the pink lotus we all know". It closes at night and opens in the morning. For the Egyptians, it was the sun being reborn.

The cornflower. Cornflowers were found in Tutankhamun's funerary garlands. A true detective flower, giving up its clues thousands of years later.

Myrrh. Brought back from the land of Punt by an expedition sent by Queen Hatshepsut, with incense trees carried home alive. It went into kyphi, the incense of ancient Egypt.

Papyrus. In Cairo, I was finally able to touch it. " Above all, I was amazed to touch and see papyrus as a living plant for the first time." With a pang: "Before, it was teeming with papyrus."

There are others in my notebooks: acacia, date palm, fig tree, sycamore, pomegranate.

One brush per leaf

For the first time, I didn't paint by hand. "I didn't make this print by hand, I made it directly in Photoshop, with lots of different brushes." Watercolour, pencil, oil pastel, all mixed together. "Each part of the plant has its own brush and its own colour." I wanted a deep green background, almost black: Deep Forest, like the Black Land of the Nile.

"You can take a plant apart and use each of its parts to heal… But it is still a living being, and it deserves respect."

If you walked barefoot through this garden, I would like you to find "wonder, curiosity, respect for what surrounds us".

With love,
Brescia