Flowers Still Bloom presents a photographic print series by Toronto-based artist, Danijela Gorley. Created in collaboration with seven florists local to the area where she lives and works, the series explores themes of transformation and rebirth.

Started in 2019, my creation of the series became a way to process and understand the fundamental and spiritual transformation I was undergoing due to a personal health crisis concurrently unfolding. As my long-held notions of safety and mortality were uprooted, many suppressed emotions rose to the surface, awakening a need for connection to something greater: a deeper sense of self. Being at the mercy of a global pandemic further intensified a need for rebirth both on a personal level and as a member of the larger global community.

In this series, female figures find themselves in various physical and emotional entanglements with flowers and botanical arrangements representative of the cyclical forces of the environment. Capturing these floral/figurative interactions with moody, painterly light and blurred motion, I seek to express a visceral embracement and surrendering to these natural forces.

I have come to believe that when we as humans can release an inner need to be in control of the cyclical nature of life, it is then that we are able to finally see ourselves as a part of this cycle rather than in perceived conflict with it. The healing rebirth I seek is a commitment to fully embrace a reciprocal relationship with nature. Flowers in Bloom is ultimately about such a hope to surrender.  

-Danijela Gorley

Contributing florists: Becky DeOliveira, Tellie Hunt, Jordana Masi, Jaime McCuaig, Jaimie Reeves, Lauren Sellen, Amira Shabason

Born in the former Yugoslavia, Danijela Gorley immigrated to Canada in 1990 and has been focusing her practice in photography since the beginning of her formal artistic studies. Danijela graduated from the Art and Art History program at the University of Toronto in 1998, and the Applied Photography Program from Sheridan College, ON, in 2000. Her works have been exhibited across Ontario in Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton, and internationally in the United States in Pomona and Silver Lake, California. Her work is represented in the public collections of Art Metropole, Toronto; The National Library of Quebec, and numerous private collections in Toronto.