about

botanica brasilis is a contemporary textile art studio working with plants native or naturalised within Brazilian flora through a process-based practice grounded in duration, observation, and material attention. The studio works exclusively on linen, treating botanical subjects as presences rather than motifs, and prioritising material behaviour over symbolic or illustrative representation.

Linen functions as both medium and collaborator: its agricultural origin and absorptive fibres register time, labour, and hesitation, allowing pigment to settle within the material rather than rest on the surface. Works often assume a scroll format—linen lengths suspended from wooden dowels—which preserves tactile vulnerability and direct material encounter. Current scales are modest, though variable, and may expand in future iterations while maintaining the scroll-based presentation.

Repetition operates as an ethical and perceptual discipline rather than a mode of reproduction. Plants are returned to across multiple works, not to produce identical images, but to engage the same species through different seasons, temporalities, and perceptual conditions. Each work remains singular, and no image claims fidelity or finality. This approach refuses to reduce a plant to a single “correct” representation, allowing it to exist as a being with temporal variability rather than as a static specimen.

The practice positions itself within post-minimalist and phenomenological lineages of contemporary textile art, where material behaviour and perceptual duration take precedence over expressive assertion. Botanica brasilis was founded by Cleidi Hearn, a Brazilian-born artist based in Cork, Ireland. The studio engages Brazilian flora to explore material intelligence, cultural specificity, and non-instrumental ways of seeing.

While many of the plants hold ecological, historical, or economic significance, the studio avoids didactic critique or narrative reenactment, allowing recognition to arise quietly and without explanatory authority. This aligns the work with contemporary post-humanist, slow-looking, and material-based practices.

Established as a long-term research-led studio, botanica brasilis prioritises botanical observation, material discipline, and continuity rather than individual authorship. Current works are developed by the founding artist; as the studio evolves, it intends to collaborate with aligned artists working within its conceptual framework and material standards.

Operating at the intersection of textile-based practice, botanical research, and process-led conceptual art, botanica brasilis contributes to ongoing dialogues around textile as critical medium and non-extractive ecological awareness. Its aim is not to produce definitive images, but to structure encounters in which plants—often instrumentalised or overlooked—stand whole and unclaimed.