NAME: RARE PLANTS, 2024-2025
LOCATION: Galerie Am Fluss, Bad Ischl, Austria
DATE: 25.04.2025 -05.05.2025

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part of the series

"Archives of the Living: Painting Endangered Plants and Material Ecologies."

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RARE Plants explores the hidden stories of rare and endangered plant species found across the United Kingdom through contemporary painting, bringing together botanical research, mythology, cultural memory, and ecological reflection.

Inspired by threatened British flora, Ruth Mateus-Berr transforms scientific knowledge into poetic visual narratives. Rather than presenting plants as passive botanical subjects, she portrays them as active protagonists and living archives of place, resilience, adaptation, and survival. Each work combines botanical references with symbolic imagery, connecting individual species to folklore, literature, history, and the landscapes in which they grow.

The plants become witnesses to environmental change and carriers of collective memory. Their rarity is not only a biological concern, but also a reminder of the cultural and natural heritage embedded within the British landscape. When a species disappears, we lose not only part of an ecosystem, but also the stories, traditions, and knowledge that have grown alongside it.

Through vibrant colour, layered symbolism, and carefully researched narratives, RARE Plants invites us to look more closely at the often-overlooked flora of the UK. Each painting becomes a singular portrait of a rare species and a fragment of a living archive, bringing together beauty, scientific knowledge, and a deeper reflection on care and coexistence.

For collectors, the works offer a distinctive encounter with the botanical heritage of the United Kingdom—unique paintings that preserve the presence and story of species whose future is increasingly uncertain.