Dear Diary... Birds of Paradise

It's summer! The Curiosity Cabinet has been on holiday but we thought we would send some exotic, faraway inspiration your way. While we're currently enjoying sizzling beaches and golden sands, we're still looking to the past for inspiration and the great voyages of the Enlightenment came to mind. When exotic birds and unknown flora & fauna were first discovered and documented by artists and explorers in 17th and 18th centuries, a lush language of printed imagery evolved.  Our pick of antique natural history prints below, are testament to the rich visual history that recorded and brought the natural world to life in European homes hundreds of years ago.

 

 

Inspired by Art Nouveau design, the Parisian entomologist and designer Eugène Séguy created lurid illustrations inspired by antique natural history prints which were later transformed into textile designs. His scientifically accurate drawings of butterflies and insects are magnified into spectacular creations. While they represent the sublime beauty of nature, they are rendered as such that they become abstract patterns of bold colours and forms.

Dear Diary... Le Cabinet de Curiosites

The Curiosity Cabinet's daily dose of inspiration for the aesthetically inclined...

While curiosity shopping on my lunch break I discovered an actual Curiosity Cabinet fabric on Fulham Rd courtesy of Kingcome fabrics and sofas! Leading French fabric house Manuel Canova have created a fabric design, Le Cabinet de Curiosites, complete with bell jars, sculptural coral, butterflies and shells which appeals to the curious in all of us.

Let’s Little Black Book it!

Dear Diary... Balmy, Palm Tree days

The Curiosity Cabinet's daily dose of inspiration for the aesthetically inclined...  

While the snow is falling outside in London, I choose to dream of desert island days and the vanilla scent of hot summer nights.

 If finding inspiration beyond grey skies and sprinkles of white snow is proving too hard then cast your eye out East. Something is always cooking in Hackney and one of my favourite interiors labels, House of Hackney, based in the heart of the creative East End, has just conjured up a sizzling new print which puts the summer into winter. Their new fabric, Palmeral, in either Midnight Green or Day Green - a palmette pattern on dark navy will inspire rainforest dreams on humid nights - or palm tree leaves on a crisp white background will magic up hammock daydreams... 

Similarly, House of Hackney's Wild Card pieces and prints mix a little conservatory style with a some exotic charm - bringing the outdoors in.

 

They have also released a balmy, palmy cushion to heat up your sofa. I can't wait to see what's next for House of Hackney. Right now I want my very own hothouse with tropical plants and palms!

Tropical greenhouse at Floral Park (Parcs Florales) in Nice, France.

Tropical hothouse at La Casa del Wacho, Manteo, NC.

 Mmm, pineapples! I'll keep dreaming... thanks for the dreams House of Hackney!

Curiosity Shop #6

Serpents

In Genesis 3:1-5 it is the serpent’s power that leads Eve to disobey God’s command and consequently cause the downfall of man and thus expulsion from the garden of Eden. The original tempter of Eve the temptress, the serpent has come to represent desire, lust and ultimately evil. Regardless of ones position on women’s rights and religion, the serpent is one of the oldest mythological symbols in a variety of historical contexts. ‘More wise than any beast of the field’, as the bible describes, the serpents strength and consequently power over human kind provides this cold-blooded creature a position of greatness and respect. They can kill with just one venomous bite: the serpent has come to represent the dual nature of good and evil, life and death.

 

Guido Mocafico captures this dual nature in his photographs of snakes. They are as deathly and dangerous as they are beautiful and divine. Truly the sublime, natures brilliance is accentuated in the squirming, entangled wreath of serpents. His images are brilliant, sleek, sharp and evocative. The colours become surreal, blinding even - too perfect, to be true.

Using a large-format analogue camera with colour transparencies, he develops long term photographic series with a hint of darkness including skulls, medusa, snakes, arachnea and venenum. He also meticulously recreates still lives and has researched and shot the movement of fine watches’s to precision.

Aside from large bodies of work for books and exhibitions, he has also produced an impressive array of commercial and editorial shoots. Most recently, he has produced work for major fashion brands including Gucci, Chanel, Clarins, Shiseido, YSL, Clinique, Dior, Bvlgari, Armani and Hermès and published in magazines such as Numéro, Numéro Homme, Paradis, V Mag, Vogue US, Vogue France, Men’s Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The Face, Wallpaper.

Some of my favourite Mocafico serpents are below. Poisonously beautiful!

Where can you get one for yourself? Let’s Little Black Book it!

The Curiosity Shop

Welcome to my curiosity cabinet. Here I will bring to you a selection of objects and art which invoke the sentiments of the curiosity cabinet – magic, wonder and excitement. I want art and antiques to be fun, exciting, sexy and covetable.

The curiosity cabinet concept draws on the European tradition of collecting exotic objects from faraway lands and assembling them together in a contained space. This space became known as the cabinet of curiosity or wonder room (wunderkammer) where the wondrous and the bizarre interacted.

The wunderkammer acted as a theatre of the memory. Tokens of exploration provided a visual record of new worlds. A single object became a symbol for memories of far flung shores that for many Europeans seemed imaginary.

My curiosity cabinet captures that imagination. I select treasures that I would like to house in my own wonder room and share them with you.

I’ll tell you how much things cost and where to get them. My Let’s Little Black Book it! section gives hints and tips of where to find a piece of art I blog or something similar in London. I’ll even take you curiosity shop shopping!

Most importantly I will blog things that I want to own.

Let me know what you think of my Curiosity Cabinet...

The Curiosity Shopper xxx

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If you are interested in the concept of Contemporary Curiosity Cabinet's click here to read my synopsis for the Wunderkammer exhibition held at Hoxton Art Gallery this year (9th March 2012 - 12th April 2012).