About
F L O R A S C O P I C
Florascopic is a botanical art practice by Sherin Siew, working with pressed plant material to explore biological structure, pattern and variation. It appeals to our innate affinity with nature, inviting viewers to truly encounter each plant — recognising beauty not only in appearance, but in the underlying logic of living form.
P R O C E S S
The work begins with locally gathered flora, preserved using a traditional press. Compressing the specimen into a flat plane offers a new way of seeing plants, bringing textures, venation and pigment gradients into clearer view.
Through macro observation, these morphological features are treated as expressions of biological organisation beyond the purely ornamental.
Pressing also transforms how familiar botanical forms can be displayed. Once deconstructed, petals and leaves become compositional elements that can be reorganised. In Sherin’s circular and grid-based compositions, these elements are assembled into new visual wholes.
Most works focus on a single species at a time, allowing the intrinsic qualities of the plant to guide the composition. Others assemble flora from a specific landscape to create botanical portraits of place.
A R T I S T
Sherin Siew is a Malaysian-born, Hong Kong-raised artist and designer based in Oxfordshire. Her approach is informed by over a decade of working in user experience and graphic design, where systems thinking, hierarchy and visual rhythm shape how information is perceived.
She is currently studying Plant Behaviour at the University of Oxford, deepening an interest in plants as adaptive, sophisticated organisms with capacities for sensing, memory, communication and decision-making — processes that ultimately make human life on Earth possible.
I’m open to art & design commissions and collaborations, particularly projects exploring the botanical identity of a garden, landscape, or community through locally gathered plants.
