Elisabete Sousa presented 12 works of botanical illustration showing the various endemic species of Madeira. The exhibition also presented Angie Gray illustrations, a foreign botany artist, with a set of exotic flora illustrations and was also paid tribute to Helena Incarnação, biologist and scientific illustrator at the Natural History Museum of Funchal, in a dedicatory posthumously ( 1974-2013).
I wish you explain the theme of this exhibition?
Elisabete Sousa: The purpose of this exhibition was to took into account the fact that at April 7th we open the great festival which is the feast of the flower in Madeira, but we also wanted to show through the paint, specifically, the exotic flowers that island welcomes and has acquired over all these years through emigration, also aims to show the flora of our native forest, heritage of humanity that is the forest of the laurel.
But are not mere illustrations.
ES: Certainly. WE frame them in the call botanical illustration, which obeys certain rules, although all have their well creased aesthetic component, but obey certain rules of representation of the species that are shown.
So what are the challenges of a scientific illustration? How long does it take? What is necessary?
ES: In this type of illustration we cannot say how long it takes, because it depends on the species concerned, there are plants that have a more complex morphology than others, so will depend on the plant and what we are going to represent. We do have time available to it.
The drawing is live or is through photography?
ES: I do a collection through photograpy of the different phases of the plant life, then I combined these drawings forming one, the detail of an image, the detail of a leaf next to another picture from another angle and all this is a new picture that will be the final work.
There is also a tribute to a colleague.
ES: Yes, Helena Incarnação, because it made perfect sense that she was represented here for now because this type of exposure is not common. It does not happen, then, in a region like this called the island of flowers makes sense, so we thought fit to make this. Helena Incarnação is here because she explored the botanical illustration, also had a priceless work in the field of fauna of the coastline of Madeira, then took the opportunity this occasion although she was devoted to botanical illustration, we have shown a part of the collection that the history natural museum of Funchal features her work.
