A Flower Reborn: The art of Sheri Brewster

Dying flowers can be easily swept up, thrown into a compost or garbage, and forgotten, but a Grande Prairie artist is giving them a new life. 

Artist Sheri Brewster transforms flowers into a variety of art, from images of farm animals and other plant life to pop culture icons and classic Victorian anatomy posters.

“It is something so beautiful, and it’s alive, and it does when you dry it take some of that vibrancy out of it, but then it’s like, I can give it a new life,” she said.

Just as Victor Frankenstein brought life to the dead, she gives a new life to flowers, but rather than a monster, a masterpiece is created. 

An admiration for the Victorian age is seen throughout her home, a living cabinet of curiosities with bizarre oddities, from shrunken heads to taxidermy mice on a cheese heist in the dining room. 

Paintings of sock monkeys, prints of animal heads with human bodies, often in regal attire, can all be found, with antiques around every corner.  

The walls of her home are adorned in rich blues, greens, and red, with gold accent handles, knobs, frames, and wallpaper with flowers, fish, and linear Art Deco patterns.

Much like her floral artwork, many items in her collection have an underlying theme of life and death, pairing the gruesome with the beautiful.

“Victorian medical drawings are so graphic and disturbing, it’s like they did every disease in cartoon,” she said.

Colours are what drive her to create the formation of her artwork. She looks at the colours in her stash of dried flowers and plant life, then begins building her artworks.

A floral collage makes up the many muscles and anatomy of the human form. 

“I’m just really drawn to it, and I feel like the colours of some flowers match it so well.”

“I can put them in this gruesome picture, and then they look beautiful.”

The same images have gained the attention of doctors and medical professionals.

“I always feel good when a doctor or nurse buys one of the human anatomies,” she said. 

People have also bought images of kidneys and lungs in the same style for friends who have had transplants. 

“I love doing it; I feel so grateful that other people love it too.

“I get to do my hobby, something that makes me so happy, and this is my job too. I don’t know if there’s anything better in life than doing what you enjoy.”

Her artwork is uniquely her own.

Embracing the words of Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”  

The creation of her artworks is combined with her own love of gardening. 

“I love to garden, so I wanted to be able to save them,” said Brewster. 

Brewster acquires her flowers not only from her own garden but also from local greenhouses and from neighbours who bring her petals and unique leaves. 

The first step in her process is drying the flowers.

“It’s really hard to dry the bright reds,” she noted. 

She will use books to press and dry flowers, and a microwave press allows her to preserve colours better, as vibrance can fade during the drying process.

“I cut a lot of the flowers into the shapes I want, and then there are some weird plants. I get this one called Bells of Ireland, and it’s green with yellow veins through it, and it dries really cool. 

“It makes me think of dinosaurs, so I’ve used it for dinosaur skin. It basically looks like scales.” Brewster’s talent with drying flowers allows her to preserve bride bouquets after a wedding. 

She will meticulously take the bouquet apart, petal by petal, for the best drying experience and to preserve as much colour as possible, then reconstruct the bouquet. 

A steady hand with her tweezers has created a world of shapes and colours beyond what any flower could imagine it could become. 

Some brides ask for creative ways to use their wedding-day flowers.

“I recreate the bouquet in the frame or have people ask, ‘Can you make me a pair of chickens?’ so I made a rooster and a chicken to represent her and her husband,” said Brewster.

Her home also includes many pop culture elements, just like her works of art. 

Toys and trinkets from retro television shows sit next to family photos of her grandparents and her grandfather’s war helmet; jigsaw puzzles are nestled next to a Freddy Krueger glove from A Nightmare on Elm Street and a figurine of Herman Munster from the 1960s television show The Munsters.

Her floral artworks include pop culture elements such as Anne of Green Gables, Pee-wee’s Playhouse characters, and even a portrait of Little Edie from Grey Gardens.

A peculiar taste that lives in perfect harmony.

Art is life, and Brewster’s decor, collections and creations embrace it wholeheartedly.

Written by Melanie Jenner and Jesse Boily