Jennifer Steinkamp Analysis

This piece by Jennifer Steinkamp, displays various flowers and plants that are animated inside a cubic frame. The flowers and plants periodically collide with each other and the edges of the frame, breaking apart into seeds, twigs, leaves, and petals in an endless loop. There is an array of colors being used in this piece. The flowers range from red poppies, to yellow and pink tulips, and a various purple and white wildflowers and green vines and stems. The blue flowers bring a sense of calmness to the sea of flowers, while the red flowers bring forth a sense of power and love. The bright golden-yellows, orange hues and white flowers in contrast radiate warmth both through emotions and temperature. The flowers and plants float around, as if …show more content…
This puts a spin to her artwork. One could infer that the piece is not meant to tell a story. The plants and flowers are just living within nature. The curved lines, smooth and delicate plants are living in a world all of their own, indifferent towards humankind and its world. There does not seem to be one clear narrative within the installation, since the flowers and plants endlessly float within the piece in an endless loop. This a common theme with Steinkamp’s pieces (Exhibit-e.com). Throughout the art world, critics and admirers of her, claim she is “a sort of Creator with a capital ‘C.’ She Creates the flowers, plants, and environments in which they operate, and then sets them free to play out the trajectory of creation to destruction to creation to destruction in continuum. Much like Nature in our living world, she creates her own Nature in the digital world” ("The Lapis Press | Jennifer Steinkamp.”). I agree with this view. There seems to be no alternative meaning to Steinkamp's Botanic 5 installation. Normal pieces of artwork are static, do not change, and have everlasting meaning behind them because of their static nature. However, Steinkamps makes her artwork literally come to