The Flowers

Dr Lisa Cooper's The Flowers gives us the opportunity to peer into the practices and vistas of someone who works with flowers daily as a leading floral designer and artist. Through anecdote, gentle instruction and photographic essays the reader will be taken from Cooper's studio workspace, to the growers' farms - the pictorial documentation of the flower growers captures the subjects portraitised within their 'natural' working environment, surrounded by a landscape of roses, knee-deep in camellias - and then on to The Flowers displayed and arranged in the vase.

For Cooper, there is no higher medium for the expression of human emotion than flowers, and her presentation of 17 floral designs also constitutes a collection of stories from her own personal 'garden of live flowers': the people - family, friends, growers, artists, gardeners and florists - who have influenced and inspired her.

About the author

Lisa Cooper is a Sydney-based artist and florist with a Doctorate of Philosophy in Fine Art from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. Cooper's work with flowers through her commercial flower business DOCTOR COOPER STUDIO spans major flower installations to hand-delivered flower gestures. Lisa's clients include Club 21, Manuscript, Westfield, Toni Maticevksi, Tiffany & Co. Deutsche Bank, The Australian Ballet, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Australia and the Sydney Theatre Company.

Dr Lisa Cooper is currently a resident artist at The Mint, Museums of History NSW. To find out more, click here.