2018 · Original size 60 × 60 cm (approx. 24 × 24 in) · Habundia — Seven Wild Flowers of the British Isles · by Stephen Meakin
Habundia is the medieval spirit of wild abundance, the presence that moves through the hedgerows and ungoverned places. Stephen named his seven British wild flower mandalas after her.
He painted it with actual wild rose oil. The painting contains the flower it depicts.
The numbers carry their own meaning. Six flowers: the hexagon. Five buds: the geometry of Venus, the planet that traces a five-petalled rose across the sky in its eight-year dance with Earth. The wild rose has five petals. It already carries that geometry.
The thorns are inside the circle, too. The rose cannot be separated from what protects it. Beauty and danger arriving together — every tradition that has encountered this plant understands this.
The wild rose blooms across every Sussex hedgerow each June without being planted. It simply appears, as it has for millennia.
Stephen painted this in Ditchling, Sussex, in the heart of the South Downs.
Within the circle amongst the many thorns are 6 rose flowers, 5 rose buds, 10 rose hearts, and 40 rose hips. — Stephen Meakin
The image is 30 × 30 cm, printed with a white border that sits under the mount. Framed, it is set in a white mount inside a 40 × 40 cm frame; the frame itself adds up to about 2 cm on each side.