The artist and creative director Hattie Molloy—who lives and works in Melbourne—erects strange, kaleidoscopic tableaus from plants, freezing them in photographs. Bulb stems loop at unlikely angles; totems of candy striped beetroot teeter amid the bloody petals of Sturt’s desert peas; burnt-orange soil and native grasses swallow up half a room. Molloy moves deftly between disciplines, though her work is always rooted in floral design: she creates objects and homewares, sculpture, large-scale installations, still-life photography.
Following a recent diagnosis with a functional neurological disorder, her world has physically shrunk—Molloy cannot drive, catch public transport or rideshares, and cannot leave her house without a carer by her side. “I’ve lost so much independence,” she says, “But that’s just the physical. I have my mind, my creativity, my imagination … By having so many limitations put on my physical world I’ve had to focus on making my thoughts, dreams and mind big and robust.”
