Prussian-blue pressed Cornish botanicals
2 series · 17 works.
Series by Ysella Penwarne
9 works · Pressed coastal wildflowers gathered along exposed Cornish headlands, each set against faint horizon lines and wind-worn field notes.
8 works · Alexanders, fennel, cow parsley, and other lane-side umbellifers collected on steep paths descending toward Cornish harbours.
Ysella Penwarne is a contemporary Cornish artist who draws inspiration from her unique upbringing between a tranquil creek garden and the rugged north-coast headlands. Her artistic practice revolves around the gathering, pressing, drawing, and reimagining of coastal wildflowers, particularly the resilient plants that thrive in hedgebanks, chapel walls, and along cliff paths.
With a focus on transforming humble specimens into symbols of endurance and place, Ysella's work embodies the essence of the Cornish landscape. Each print is thoughtfully composed, resembling a herbarium sheet, yet infused with the soft light of the tides, hand-tinted washes, and a deep reverence for the delicate beauty of stems, seedheads, and petals.
Ysella Penwarne’s print-world brings Cornish clifftop plants to life as both scientific specimens and sea-haunted relics, blending the ethereal contact shadows of cyanotype with the gentleness of botanical watercolour. Her images evoke the feeling of pages salvaged from a wind-damp field notebook: precise, fragile, and luminous in deep blueprint blues.