Vanity Weeds

 

Woodcut

Edition of 1

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In this series of prints Anne Marie Ploug uses weeds as a motif, and is inspired by the plants and colours that appear in Baroque paintings and especially in the Italian painter Caravaggio. Among other things, he painted realistic representations of plants and fruits that, in a halfrotten state, should remind the viewer of the perishability of everything. 

 

Ploug’s works are not memento mori, but instead show a fascination with the ugly and what is often considered superfluous or secondary and simple. It is characteristic of her works that they are often based on a figurative element, and that the work with form and color is the primary thing. The motif is processed and simplified so that its connection to the real world disappears. But the figurative is the starting point from which the horizon expands, and new narratives emerge.