The story of the world begins with a garden. The ancient Persian idea of throwing down a carpet in the desert as an ‘instant garden’ encapsulate something about the relationship between humans and nature: our incredible creative ability to manipulate and magic nature out of nothing. At the time of beginning this work, I was struggling through a medicalised process of reproduction (IVF). I started gardening as a comfort and escape from the medicalised fertility process I was going through. Soon I was researching Dutch Flower paintings and discovered that these were highly artificial: each image an elaborate construction, from dozens of studies spanning seasons and continents. Borrowing several techniques from the Dutch Masters, I photographed generic, hothouse varieties of flowers in the studio alongside garden weeds and insects. These were manipulated, assembled, and repeated until a random but decorative pattern emerged.