In her floral still-life painting ‘Messengers,’ contemporary American artist Elizabeth Barlow explores the symbolism of flowers and their power to inspire hope, renewal, and transformation.
Painting of the Week: Elizabeth Barlow’s “Messengers” Finds Hope in Flowers
“Messengers” distills my belief that flowers (and paintings of them) are more than just things of beauty,” Barlow says. “I believe that flowers use their beauty as a lure and offer important messages if we will just take the time to receive them. When we pause and really look at a flower, we are awakened from the sleep of our busy-ness and become alive to the miracle of the present moment, where we can often hear their messages of hope, renewal and transformation.”
“Messengers” is included in a new exhibition that explores flowers as symbols of transformation. Curated by Elizabeth Barlow and Andra Norris, the works are on view in the show titled “Seed” at Andra Norris Gallery (Burlingame, California).
A contemporary still-life artist, Barlow follows a time-honored practice. She begins by making a pencil sketch of her subject on an oil-primed, custom-made linen support. She follows this with an alla prima (initial wet on wet) layer of oil paint in color. Multiple glazed layers follow, a meticulous and time-consuming process that results in works of luminosity and depth. To develop her composition she takes hundreds of photographs to use as her references, later combining them to realize the vision she is after. (Read more on Barlow’s website.)
About “Seed”
This exihbition features mid-career and established artists working across watercolor, oil painting, sculpture, and drawing. In Seed, flowers become both subjects and symbols — sites of exploration that move beyond representation into meditations on beauty, decay, renewal, loss, and transformation. Together, the exhibition’s works form a dialogue between artists who each approach flowers in distinct ways: as emblems of pure beauty, rebirth, transcendence, fragility, and hope. Inside every flower lies a powerful force: a seed of regeneration and resilience. Across disciplines and perspectives, the works in Seed deepen our understanding of flowers as enduring carriers of emotional, spiritual, and natural meaning.
“Flowers are symbols of the hope that lies within all nature, of the power to regenerate and be transformed,” says Barlow. “There is this same little seed inside each one of us, because we are all part of the miracle that is life on this earth.”
The exhibition includes works by artists Elizabeth Barlow, Donald Bradford, Gary Bukovnik, Pamela Carroll, Willard Dixon, Jane B. Grimm, Erin Hunter, Troy House, Jane Kim, Justyna Kisielewicz, David Ligare, Susan Manchester, Stephen Namara, Chikako Okada, Demetra Theofanous, and Dean Bensen.
Exhibition Details at a Glance:
“Seed”
Andra Norris Gallery
Burlingame, CA
On view through November 6, 2026
andranorrisgallery.com
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Blog post prepared for the web by Cherie Dawn Haas, Editor of Realism Today
