Tiny Botanicals – The magical work of Aimee Pradel

Let me share with you my happy place. Where the air is warm and smells sweetly of apple blossom and jasmine. Where golden light touches your face and you feel your truest self, weightless, transcendent. – Aimee Pradel

Aimee Pradel is a botanical artist who lives and works in Melbourne where she creates ‘Old World’ treasures destined to become future heirlooms, bringing a sense of history and beauty into our worlds.

Aimee’s exquisitely detailed pieces feel like a weaving together of her creative life story. Her childhood was spent playing in enchanted woodland gardens in Mount Macedon and this, together with a love of fairytales, myth, ancient folklore and painters of old, opened a strong sense of majesty and awareness of the imagined and natural world.

Images // Clockwise from top left Mandy Couzens, Kim Selby, Mandy Couzens, Aimee Pradel

 

My earliest memory is building exquisitely detailed fairy houses from sticks, moss, leaves and flowers in the enchanted corners of our garden.

Working as a florist for over 15 years at the now famous, Flowers Vasette, as well as studying visual merchandising and painting, taught Aimee valuable lessons in style, balance and beauty creation, giving her the courage to discover her own creative expression. A self-proclaimed ‘general lover of all things tiny and detailed’, Aimee’s other passions include weaving, quilting, embroidery and knitting.

Images // Clockwise from top Kim Selby, Aimee Pradel, Mandy Couzens

 

I had given up floristry, was turning 40 and thought, ‘When am I going to have the courage to create my own expression in the world?’. A dear friend suggested taking three months off to research and develop some ideas and that’s exactly what I did. I treated it like a job – I showed up to work in my studio every day at nine o’clock and I started by making anything that made me happy.

 

Finding inspiration in music, flowers, old children’s book illustrations and botancial paintings, Aimee uses combinations of copper and clay to recreate favourite flowers and foliage – violets, pansies, forget-me-nots, daffodils, lily of the valley, oak leaves and acorns – her imagination knows no bounds. She repurposes old trophies and teapots, adding on painted ribbons and heartfelt sentiments. Her goddess-like crowns of flowers are inspired by the old French wax-dipped orange blossom crowns women would wear when getting married – all full of magic and whimsy.

Images // Clockwise from top: Kim Selby

Slow making is where Aimee is happiest and in a throwaway culture, her work and life completely embrace the ‘slow making’ philosophy to imbue her life with purpose and meaning and in turn, delivers joy to those lucky enough to own a piece of her highly collectable work.

Discover more of Aimee’s inspiring heirlooms and treasures here.
Follow Aimee on instagram here.