Chrissy Angliker captures harmony and chaos in her stunning floral paintings

Running from 29 January through to 5 March, Crazy Says The Daisy is a prime example of how Chrissy likes to explore the controllable and the uncontrollable in her work. A former student under the mentorship of Russian artist Juri Borodatchev, her hybrid background as an artist and a designer, has honed her ability to represent her subjects in an unrestrained way.

As seen in her paintings, which depict abstract floral displays and figures, Chrissy tackles the medium of paint uniquely and compellingly. Instead of layering it via delicate brushstrokes, the paint is almost herded into place via brushes and palette knives to create engaging, textured masterpieces.

Using the German expression of "say it through a flower" as a jumping-off point, Chrissy has found herself retroactively processing the struggles of the previous few years in the paintings on display. The phrase, which is used to convey the need to "deliver difficult news softly, tenderly, with elegance and great care", reflects how she felt the urge to flex her emotional limbs again now that the brunt of the pandemic has passed.

"The flower became not just the foundation of this work, but the vessel to move it outward," she tells Creative Boom. She also adds that it was: "my catalyst to surrender, release, and embrace a multitude of methods and techniques to help me speak again."

In these beautiful, dynamic images, which have been just as much sculpted on the canvas as painted, Chrissy wants to evoke a sense of boiling over, only to miraculously find herself "cradled within the sane confinement" of the subject matter. It's a sense of discord that runs through the whole exhibition.

With the larger scale of the pieces, she is free to play with contradictory "paint-vocabularies", which express the inherent polarities of how we live now. "Polarities that need to be able to coexist and which actually bloom when they harmonise."

Crazy Says The Daisy doesn't just feature towering works caked in layers of paint, though. There are smaller images on display too. In comparison, these are more spontaneous and act as a nod towards normalcy. By appearing humble compared to their bigger counterparts, they express a reverence towards small, everyday pleasures we have all come to appreciate more.

"Some flowers grow and die, and we only notice them in their journey when they blossom," says Chrissy. "These are those flowers."

And what can viewers learn from these epic tumults of paint and unpredictability? "Perhaps it's a new understanding of the absence of formula, the recognition that the universe will do what it wants with unimaginable strength," says Chrissy. "And while we are powerless to bend it, we can if we choose to honour its iridescence."

If you want to honour and marvel at the splendour of Chrissy's paintings, plan our visit to the Massey Klein now.