The Secret Language of Flowers: Canadian Artist Patti Friday’s New "Folk Colour Blocks" Series

There are certain things I keep coming back to as an artist: flowers, colour, pattern, stories and the quiet little mysteries hidden inside everyday things.

My new painting series brings all of these loves together.

As a Canadian artist, I have spent years photographing botanicals. Flowers appear again and again in my photographs, whether carefully arranged in a still life, discovered growing wild in a garden, gathered from the roadside or simply noticed because the light happened to fall across them in a particular way.

I think I have always been a bit of a botanical collector, although my collecting is done with a camera, a paintbrush and an ever growing fascination with the natural world.

Now those flowers are making their way onto the painted surface.

Colour, colour and more colour

I consider myself a colourist.

Colour is rarely an afterthought in my work. It is often where the work begins.

I love the emotional qualities of colour, the way a particular red can feel exuberant while another feels mysterious, how yellow can be sunny and optimistic or strangely melancholic, and how unexpected combinations can suddenly make an image come alive.

For this new series, I am exploring the idea of the flower repeated across a field of colour blocks.

The flower remains recognizable, but its personality changes depending upon the colour surrounding it. A botanical image can become joyful, nostalgic, mysterious, playful or even slightly peculiar simply by changing its colour story.

That is part of the fun.

A little contemporary folk art

My passion for contemporary folk art is also deeply woven into this series.

I love art that doesn't take itself too seriously. Art with personality. Art that has a little bit of the handmade, the folkloric and the unexpected about it.

I am drawn to folk traditions because they often communicate through simple shapes, repeated motifs, pattern and symbolism. A flower can be a flower, but it can also represent home, love, remembrance, renewal, celebration or hope.

My paintings play with that idea.

The repeated botanical becomes almost like a character appearing throughout a visual story.

Look a little closer

And then there is the secret part.

Hidden within each painting will be messages.

Some may be words. Some may be letters. Some may be tiny symbols, my poems or visual clues. Some may be personal. Others may be little observations about life, nature, joy, love, memory or the passage of time.

They won't necessarily announce themselves.

You have to look.

I like the idea that a painting can reveal itself slowly. First you see the colour. Then the flowers. Then the pattern. And eventually, perhaps, you discover something that was quietly sitting there all along.

It becomes a kind of visual treasure hunt.

Flowers as storytellers

I have always believed that flowers carry stories.

They arrive with the seasons. They remind us of gardens, childhood, celebrations, people we have loved and places we have travelled. They can be exuberant or delicate, cultivated or wild.

And they are wonderfully democratic.

A flower does not need to be rare or exotic to be beautiful.

Sometimes the ordinary ones are the most interesting.

This new series is my way of celebrating that beauty while giving it a new language through colour, pattern and contemporary folk art.

I imagine the paintings living together as a colourful botanical chorus, each one different, each one carrying its own little secret.

So, when you encounter one of these paintings, don't just look at the flowers.

Look for the message.

You never know what might be hiding in the garden.

Coming soon! Stay tuned here. 

PFXO 

COPYRIGHT 2007-2026 Patti Friday b.1959.