About

Botanica Brasilis is a contemporary textile art practice that examines cultivated plants as carriers of ecological memory. Working on suspended linen scrolls, the practice engages with the histories embedded in agricultural species — histories shaped by land use, labour, and environmental knowledge. Across the works, plants appear as living traces of cultivated landscapes that continue to inhabit memory across geographic distance.

The studio is led by Brazilian-born artist Cleidi Hearn, based in Ireland. Each plant is reconstructed through recollection and painted slowly with fine brushes in a sustained and attentive process. Form emerges through repeated gestures that accumulate gradually across the textile surface. This labour-intensive method mirrors the rhythms of agricultural work, where cultivation unfolds through patience, repetition, and care over time.

The plants depicted originate from Brazil’s agricultural environments — crops formed through generations of cultivation, human labour, and ecological adaptation. Within the work, these species function as repositories of intertwined histories linking soil, climate, agricultural knowledge, and cultural practice. The paintings celebrate the plant as a site where these relationships remain present and legible.

Materiality plays a central role in this inquiry. Linen, itself an agricultural fibre, introduces a parallel lineage of cultivation and land use. Its absorbent weave draws pigment into the textile, allowing colour to settle gradually within the cloth. Image and fibre develop together, embedding vegetal form within the material structure of the textile.

Works take the form of vertical scrolls suspended from wooden dowels. This format preserves the tactile integrity of the linen while establishing a concentrated encounter with each plant. The vertical field isolates the vegetal form, allowing it to occupy the textile surface with clarity and presence.

Repetition structures the practice. Individual species reappear across multiple works, allowing their forms to be revisited through sustained observation and memory. Each painting contributes to an evolving body of work in which cultivated plants circulate through time, gesture, and textile surface.

Through slow painting on agricultural fibre, Botanica Brasilis situates the plant as a bearer of ecological and cultural memory. The work engages with contemporary conversations around migration, cultivation, and material knowledge, offering a sustained reflection on how agricultural landscapes continue to persist within cultural memory and artistic practice.