Questions
This page addresses recurring questions about the work, materials and conceptual approach of Botanica Brasilis.
The responses offer context for viewers, collectors and institutions encountering the practice for the first time.
About the Practice
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Botanica Brasilis is a contemporary textile art practice centred on the sustained observation of plant forms and their translation into pigment on linen.
Each work develops through a slow process in which perception, material behaviour and time interact. Images are not imposed onto the surface but gradually emerge through repeated contact between pigment and fibre.
Plants are approached not as decorative motifs or symbolic elements, but as presences encountered through attentive looking.
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Plants reveal their structure gradually.
Branching patterns, growth rhythms and subtle asymmetries become visible only through repeated observation. Their forms therefore create a natural framework for exploring perception itself.
Working with plants allows the practice to investigate how looking evolves over time.
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No.
Botanical illustration serves a scientific function: identifying, classifying and describing plant species.
The works of Botanica Brasilis do not aim to document botanical information. Instead they explore how plant forms appear through sustained attention and material interaction.
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The practice investigates how attention forms and how perception changes when viewing slows down.
In contemporary visual culture, images are often encountered rapidly and processed quickly. Botanica Brasilis explores what becomes visible when that pace is interrupted.
Through sustained observation and materially disciplined painting, the work asks how visual attention can become more patient, stable and receptive.
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Botanica Brasilis was founded by Brazilian textile artist Cleidi Hearn, whose work centres on the sustained observation of plants and the slow translation of these encounters into pigment on linen.
Her practice emerges from a lifelong relationship with plant life first experienced in Brazil and continues to evolve through encounters with plants in Ireland, where the studio is currently based.
Through this work, the studio develops a method of attentive observation and material discipline that places perception and plant presence at the centre of the artistic process.
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Botanica Brasilis literally means “plants of Brazil.”
The name acknowledges the extraordinary biodiversity of Brazilian plant life and calls attention to plants that sustain one of the richest ecosystems on earth yet remain largely overlooked.
The geographic reference reflects the artist’s lived experience of growing up among these plants and learning to observe them closely.
The name is written in Latin to evoke the historical role of Latin as a language through which knowledge is carried across generations.
In this sense, Botanica Brasilis refers not only to plants, but to a method of observing and painting them with attention and discipline — a practice intended to continue beyond the lifetime of the studio’s founder.
Process and Materials
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All works are hand-painted on natural linen using textile pigments.
Each piece begins with the observation of plant forms. Through repeated sessions of looking and painting, the structure of the plant is translated onto the textile surface.
Most works are created as linen hanging scrolls — lengths of cloth suspended from wooden dowels. This format allows the textile to remain visibly present as a material surface and encourages an intimate, bodily encounter with the work.
The scroll format also supports sustained viewing, inviting the viewer to stand close to the cloth and follow the unfolding structures of the plant over time.
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Linen introduces a specific material intelligence into the work. Because it is derived from flax, one plant-based material holds the trace of another. This creates a continuous relationship between subject and surface and emphasises tactility, duration, and material presence.
Its fibres absorb pigment unevenly, creating subtle variations that cannot be fully controlled. These qualities slow the act of painting and require careful attention to the surface.
Linen also carries a long cultural history across Europe and beyond. Its durability and tactile presence make it particularly suited to the quiet material processes of the practice.
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Yes.
Each piece is a one-of-a-kind work developed through a specific period of observation and painting.
Because the process depends on time, attention and the behaviour of the material, no two works can be replicated.
Perception and Meaning
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Attention is central to the practice.
The works are created through sustained observation and are intended to be experienced in the same way. Their structures often reveal themselves slowly, encouraging viewers to remain with the surface of the work rather than moving quickly past it.
In this sense, the work operates as a field for perception rather than as a message to decode.
Meaning arises through the encounter between viewer and work.
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Contemporary visual culture often presents images that immediately announce their meaning.
This practice takes a different approach. It withholds narrative instruction so that perception can operate more freely.
Rather than telling the viewer what to think about the image, the work creates conditions in which seeing itself becomes the central experience.
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The practice addresses ecological perception.
It proposes a shift in how attention is given to non-human life, particularly plant life. By encouraging sustained encounters with plant presence, the work invites viewers to reconsider how humans perceive and relate to the vegetal world.
In this sense, the ecological dimension of the work lies in the cultivation of attentive perception and the recognition of plant presence.
Encountering the Work
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There is no correct interpretation.
Viewers are encouraged to spend time with the surface of the work and allow perception to unfold gradually. Subtle structural relationships within the plant forms often become visible only after sustained looking.
The work does not demand specialised knowledge. It asks only for time and attention.
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Botanica Brasilis is based in Cork, Ireland.
The studio develops one-of-a-kind linen works and participates in exhibitions, acquisitions and institutional collaborations.
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For enquiries regarding acquisitions, exhibitions, institutional collaborations or press, please contact the studio via the contact page.