Envy explores one of the most corrosive of the Seven Deadly Sins through the remarkable history of Victorian orchid mania. The skull is constructed from botanical illustrations of orchids, flowers once so coveted that they inspired obsession, deception and environmental destruction on a global scale.
At the height of Orchidelirium, wealthy collectors and commercial nurseries guarded rare specimens behind locked glasshouses, employed spies, circulated false maps and dispatched rival hunters into remote jungles in search of elusive blooms. Entire habitats were stripped bare and fortunes spent simply to possess what others could not. In some cases, collectors destroyed their own orchids to increase scarcity and provoke the envy of competitors.
Threaded throughout the work are caterpillars and insects, symbols of decay and corruption. Referencing William Blake’s The Sick Rose, they suggest a hidden force consuming the beauty it claims to admire.
Beneath the orchids’ delicate appearance lies a darker truth: envy rarely celebrates beauty. Instead, it seeks to possess, control or destroy it. The skull becomes both trophy and warning. A monument to desire transformed into ruin.