Wiseman Studio Newsletter, April 2025

The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth

It felt like a dream to be asked to create a site-specific work for the Grotto Room at Chatsworth for the exhibition, The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth.

About 20 years ago, when I began creating commissions for homes, I looked to the past for inspiration, and in my research, I encountered the great European houses, the royal estates, and great halls, where countless hours of artistry were united with the architecture, transporting reveling guests through ornamentation and decoration to Arcadian visions.

I was asked to contribute a wall-mounted mirror for the Grotto Room, an interior space containing a fountain featuring the goddess Diana, caught off guard while bathing with her nymphs, flanked by sea creatures—a reference to the well known myth where the hunter, Actaeon, wanders far afield and encounters the goddess bathing in her grotto.

I wanted to see if I could depict my own idea of a grotto—a mystical cavernous realm, often portrayed in literature and myth as a portal to the underworld, a dwelling place of the spirit world, a place where the veil is thin.

Dripping stalactites descend upon rocky bluffs, creating cave-like hollows and perches for life. Animal, vegetal, and mineral are woven together, distinctions blurred, secret split gilled mushrooms open trap doors, a hermit’s hut burning the billowing mystical incense smoke, a viper carefully exploring while a stalwart crayfish stands guard, a stoic owl gazing out, as if unaware, the rock face is teeming with life, ceramic anemones and peyotes inhabit nooks and crannies, surrounding a pensive Sonoran psychedelic desert toad.

D.W.

The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth

Curated by Allegra Pesenti

On view until October 5, 2025