One of the most lush and safe spaces I ever encountered on my “visit as many botanic gardens in one lifetime as you can”-quest: the Victoriahuset at Stockholm Botanic Garden. A greenhouse that’s been there for centuries – which you feel immediately after entering: you’re just visiting, the pants are in charge here. They condone being taking care of by people just as cats condone cuddles. My definition of paradise.
If this painting feels like paradise for you too I would love it to be yours. You can claim it in my shop.
Specs of Victorian Jungle painting
Acrylics, oil, and oil pastel on canvas, 30 x 55 cm, in white wooden box frame (34 x 59 cm with frame).
Victorian Jungle is available for €125,-
Details of Victorian Jungle painting
Development of Victorian Jungle painting
This painting took several months to realise. After making the pictures in the Victoriahuset in Stockholm in July 2024 I first made some composition drawings in ink once I got home. Because I was also still working on my Night Garden series I started painting the base layers end of 2024 and putting on the initial compositions in white. In January 2025 I had to get cracking, because I would be showing these paintings at an exhibition in early March. Due to that deadline I ended up with ‘okay-ish’ paintings composition wise but colour wise they were nowhere near ready in my opinion (while I already had changed the colour schemes three times up until then).
So after the exhibition I took them out of their frames and started to work on them again, this time also using oil pastels in order to not only add more/other colours but also depth and texture. Dark pinks and reds were put on top of the bright pinks, I added browns onto the orange and omitted the bright light blues in favour of a more muted light blue. Finally, my initial ‘jungle dreams’ that I had been dreaming for almost a year became a reality, including this Victorian Jungle dream of a painting.
I can’t be happier with the end result. Victorian Jungle feels just as playful as I felt walking around the pond in Victoriahuset. As if you can just take a leap into the painting and hop from one waterlily leaf to another, climbing the bamboo trunks on the left and jump over to the large pink lotus leaves just to bounce of off them as if they were cushions. With its innate love of adventure this painting always reminds me to have fun.
When you’re reading this and you catch yourself thinking “my sentiments exactly”, click the shop button and make this painting yours:
