Ayo Banton’s Brutiful series takes inspiration from

Baroque paintings and Dutch Golden Age still lives,

reimagining these iconic genres through the language

of contemporary photography.

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Each artwork begins as a unique flower sculpture,

carefully created by the artist, who has been practising

the art of ikebana (Japanese flower arranging) for over

thirty years. He patiently waits for the flowers to wilt,

so that he can capture the transitional moment

between life and death. Banton shoots his flower

sculptures against hand-painted backgrounds,

elevating them through this mix of media and

amplifying their already painterly quality.

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Despite their impressively rich detail, Banton’s works

have not been digitally edited or enhanced. They are

in fact layered photographs, and each final image

might consist of up to sixty layers. All that changes

between each shot is the source of light - a technique

Banton refers to as “painting with light”.

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Presented as either Giclée fine art prints or photographic lightboxes, the artworks

from the Brutiful series evoke the sensory richness of sacred spaces, recalling the

artist’s early memories of the Catholic church, with dramatic candlelight,

decadent floral displays and incense that have influenced his artistic journey to

this day.

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At the core of Brutiful lies an exploration of beauty, impermanence and

transformation. Flowers, with their transient lives, have long symbolised love,

mortality and renewal. Through his lens, Banton elevates them to embody

profound emotions such as grief, tenderness and hope, while reminding us of the

possibility of enlightenment through everyday forms.

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