PASSION PROJECT

Dyana Hesson continues her mission to preserve Arizona's native blooms in paint.

- SARAH GIANELLI

Arizona, with its extreme variations in elevation and climate, is home to almost 4,000 species of native plants, making it one of the most floristically rich regions in the United States. This abundance also makes it a perfect home for artist Dyana Hesson, whose focus is painting the state’s vast botanical biodiversity ahead of a sweeping showcase of her progress at Tucson’s Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in the fall of 2025.

Florals have been the subject of Hesson’s larger-than-life paintings for more than 30 years, but it was after her work was the subject of a large spread in Arizona Highways magazine in 2021 that she made a conscious decision to narrow her scope to the state’s wild botanicals, specifically.

1 Artist Dyana Hesson in the wild in March 2023.

2 Shimmering Light, Sierra Madre yucca, Patagonia Lake, AZ, oil on canvas, 48 x 36". Courtesy Bonner David Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ.

3 Higher Calling, saguaro blooms and buds near Aravaipa, AZ, oil on canvas, 40 x 50" Courtesy Bonner David Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ.

4 A Good Landing, butterfly weed and Acmon blue butterfly, Sierra Ancha Wilderness, AZ, oil on canvas, 22 x 28. Courtesy Bonner David Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ.

“It gave me a hyper-focus to really seek out and find more,” says Hesson, who has completed roughly 50 paintings in the series thus far. “I love being in the wild. I have an insatiable curiosity for what’s around the next corner. I love our state and love to research it. I love the history of the West. I get to explore and learn so much within this theme.”