Brooke Benington x Catinca Tabacaru Gallery

Nona Inescu
Daisyworld

The vegetal motif recurs throughout the exhibition, symbolising the delicate balance and self-regulation of ecosystems. Presented for the first time in the exhibition The Venus Trap in 2021, the works Brugmansia, Aristolochia, and Rosa canina (all 2021) are part of a body of photographs where a hand, coming into contact with different plant essences, gives birth to a new individual, a hybrid. The apparent simplicity of the image does not prevent it from being confusing: is it the hand that slips into the flower or the flower that swallows the hand?

This improbable union creates a third term: the appearance of an animal silhouette, similar to the head of a bird with a long beak. Originally from South America, brugmansia is a plant which no longer exists in the wild, but which remains cultivated for its psychotropic properties, used by Andean shamans to enter a trance. In Nona Inescu’s work, the hand seems simultaneously to be captive and to wear the flower like a mask – a hummingbird mask for example. Through this simple gesture, the artist establishes an implicit link between evolutionary strategy, metamorphosis, and magic, blurring the distinction between cultural and natural data.

The encounter with these works is both seductive and thought-provoking, revealing new ecosystems where the boundaries between the human, vegetal, and built environments blur. Inescu's work encourages us to imagine new interactions and collaborations, producing a speculative landscape that contemplates the future of our interconnected world.