The Artist

I am a self‑taught artist and photographer living in Atlanta, Ga, where I was raised. Since my teenage years I’ve had a deep passion for art and photography, and for as long as I can remember, those practices have shaped how I see and express myself as an artist.

Before creating Superflowers, I spent years photographing insects and producing surreal and portrait oil paintings, along with other commercial work that helped shape my sense of detail, structure, and color. Over time, that path led me toward flowers, sparked by what I discovered through photography.

What began as a simple curiosity evolved into the creation of Superflowers, where my love of surrealism, art and photography converged to form an unexpected new artistic direction that inspired the creation of my Vonflora brand, my books & prints, and a new way of painting flowers unlike anything seen before.

From regular flowers to a Superflower

Since I can remember, photography has been one of my favorite hobbies, especially macro photography of insects. That changed in 2009 while photographing a velvet ant on an orchid. When I reviewed the images, my attention shifted from the insect to the flower itself. I found its shape and colors captivating. I fell in love with flowers instantly, and from that moment my focus moved toward photographing them — an interest that would soon shape the direction of my work.

I continued photographing flowers as they were, but as an artist I felt like there was something missing. The images began to resemble what had already been done before, and they lacked the creativity and originality I was seeking.

This led me to explore a new approach. I began designing original surreal flowers by hand, selecting and combining the most compelling elements of different flowers into new creations I call Superflowers. A name inspired by their superb elements and their ability to transcend the realm of nature

Over seven years I designed and photographed more than 1,000 Superflowers drawn from a wide array of beautiful species. The process was shaped not only by the time required to create each flower, but also by the seasons themselves, as I had to wait for different varieties to become available throughout the years.

Many of these flowers appear in my book Vonflora, a photographic collection that brings hundreds of Superflowers into a single, immersive volume that embodies the scale and ambition of my project.

Before painting Superflowers I spent years painting surreal works, portraits, and commercial subjects, but never flowers. Yet despite working in different styles and subjects, I had not fully found my place as an artist. It was only after creating Superflowers that I discovered the direction that truly felt my own.

Superflowers gave me a subject unlike anything I had painted before. Their photographs capture them beautifully, but painting allows them to reach the pinnacle of their form. Through paint, their color becomes richer, their forms more dramatic, and their surreal character more fully revealed. If the photographs present the Superflowers as they exist, the paintings transform them into something even more extraordinary.

I call this body of work Vonflora Expressionism. A signature style in which Superflowers are rendered through bold, expressive painting.

Vonflora Expressionism is rooted in six artistic traditions: surrealism, fauvism, pop art, abstraction, expressionism, and botanical realism. Botanical realism grounds the work, while surrealism expands it beyond nature. Pop art turns the flower into an icon, fauvist color heightens its intensity, and the abstract and expressionist backgrounds infuse each painting with movement and energy.

Together, these influences elevate the Superflowers to their highest artistic expression, revealing them in a form that is more vivid, powerful and complete than photography alone could ever achieve.

The result is a unique style unlike anything I had created before, a transformation that not only reflects the Superflowers’ originality but also elevates them in their most magnificent, iconic, larger‑than‑life form, the climax of their creation.