What if flowers could be transformed into intricate, temporary sculptures, existing only long enough to be captured through photography?
Jennifer Latour is a self-taught artist based in Vancouver, Canada, who turns this fleeting idea into a practice. Best known for her Species series, Latour creates elaborate floral sculptures that exist for a moment before disappearing, preserved only through photography. A photographer since 2006, she also brings her experience working internationally in special effects makeup for film and television to her artistic practice. What makes her work particularly captivating is the way she transforms natural materials into intricate, temporary sculptures that celebrate nature’s patterns and beauty, letting each location and the materials themselves shape the final creation.
Explore Latour’s Species series below, and read on to discover more about her process and inspiration.
More info: Instagram | jenniferlatour.com
#1 Bound Species No.14
Image source: Jennifer Latour
Bored Panda reached out to Jennifer Latour, the artist behind the Species series, a collection of photographs born from a meticulous process of choosing, arranging, and following her curiosity.
It all started back in 2020, during lockdown. Jennifer started playing with flowers around the house, photographing them in the style of Freakabana, an unconventional approach to floral art that blends Japanese-inspired minimalism with an eclectic mix of ordinary, unusual, and found objects.
#2 Wild Flower No.22, Cypress Mountain
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#3 Shapeshifter No.7
Image source: Jennifer Latour
What started as a rather curious thing soon became something much deeper. Not long after the start of this exploration, she began having “recurring dreams of giant flowers growing around [me] with multiple other flowers growing off one stem,” as she shared with us.
#4 Wild Species, No.28, Colossal
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#5 Wild Flower No.11
Image source: Jennifer Latour
What she didn’t know was that this initial curiosity would soon become a need to override her own fears, as well as to test boundaries and territories. When travel opened up again, she found herself outdoors, and this time, instead of objects she knew: she was in unknown territory.
#6 Wild Flower No.13
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#7 Wild Species, No.26, Colossal
Image source: Jennifer Latour
Now, outside, facing the natural elements, her practice gained a different dimension, one shaped by the fleeting nature of flowers and the passage of time: “I’m at the location, I source locally grown plants, trees, and flowers from any place, like garden centers, nurseries, flower shops, and even sometimes gas stations and grocery stores.”
#8 Lough Gill, Ireland 2023
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#9 Shapeshifter No.8
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#10 Wild Species, No.32, Colossal
Image source: Jennifer Latour
Being out in the world, searching for and working with these living materials, also brought her on an internal journey of rediscovering patience and time, and of finding something worth holding on to. As Jennifer sees it, she will be “continuing to create and evolve until either [my] hands or [my] body stop working.”
#11 Utah No.2, Snow Canyon, Colossal
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#12 Bound Species No.21
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#13 Bound Species, Outdoor No.3
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#14 Donegal Species, Ireland 2023
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#15 Shapeshifter No.9
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#16 Shapeshifter No.10
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#17 Bound Species No.35
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#18 Bound Species No.39
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#19 Night Species No.2
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#20 Shapeshifter No.12
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#21 Shapeshifter No.13
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#22 Studio Species
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#23 Utah No.1, Snow Canyon, Colossal
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#24 Wild Flower No.16
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#25 Wild Species, No.31, Colossal
Image source: Jennifer Latour
#26 Wild Flower No.12
Image source: Jennifer Latour
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