Jane Lombard Gallery is pleased to present Hidden Peril, a new body of paintings by Rachael Catharine Anderson centered on poisonous plants and mushrooms. Continuing her longstanding practice of painting botanical subjects from direct observation, Anderson turns her attention to the shadow side of the natural world, where beauty and danger coexist. The works emerge from a process of foraging, research, and sustained observation. Anderson studies each plant in its natural habitat or brings it into the studio for extended examination. Rather than pursuing scientific accuracy, she records subtle shifts in the form of each plant over multiple painting sessions. Hidden Peril considers the many roles plants have held across time, as sources of beauty, poison, knowledge, and storytelling.
Raised on a flower farm and apple orchard in central Ohio, Anderson developed an early sensitivity to the cycles of growth and decay in the natural world. Her observational practice is deliberately slow. Over time, this process becomes embedded in the paintings themselves. For Hidden Peril, Anderson prepares her surfaces with marble dust, creating a ground that recalls the enduring presence of stone while the plants depicted upon it remain fleeting. This tension connects the paintings to the long history of botanical imagery in art. From still life to memento mori, plants have often carried meanings beyond their physical forms. Anderson’s poisonous plants similarly resist a single reading. Their beauty can conceal their danger, while their histories point to forms of knowledge that are increasingly distant from everyday life. Hidden Peril invites a closer look at the natural world and what may still be hidden within it.
