ANNETTE MARIE TOWNSEND

Botanical wax artist Annette Marie Townsend talks beeswax, pesticides and Victorian parlour craft with Dominique Corlett

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Sitting at the desk in her home studio, botanical wax artist Annette Marie Townsend has the perfect view from which to contemplate her next project. From here, she looks onto her abundant garden, where deep borders spill verdant greenery over the gravel paths and bees buzz around the tall verbena and flowering hebes.

While the alliums were in flower, Annette photographed them in great detail and brought a specimen into her studio to take apart, making a mould of the centre, and templates of the leaves and flowers. Some forget-me-nots were similarly examined and recorded, and she has her eye on the cornflowers next.

This careful, almost forensic research is the starting point for Annette’s incredibly detailed sculptures of flowers, plants and sometimes fruit, which she makes from wax. They are so lifelike that they seem indistinguishable from the real thing. Unlike genuine plants, however, they don’t wilt and die, but are permanently frozen in that brief moment of flowering perfection - displayed in a hand-blown glass orb or dome. On top of being designed to protect them, these challenge the viewer to think about our gathering and use of nature's bounty. 'I'm interested in scientific collections, the reasons why people covet them, and how things are stored and displayed in museums,' says Annette. 'It's this collision between the natural world and these hard materials.' Sometimes the plants are shown standing on their roots. As well as producing her artworks, Annette also collaborates with conservationists to make 'science communication pieces'.