The series Las Vegas Chrysanthemum started as a graceful, pink chrysanthemum, for me a holy flower, and turned, via rather banal processing into these very artificial pictures. My inspiration is what I think of as a the pinnacle of artificiality - Las Vegas - with its lights, shows, shotgun weddings, drinking and gambling, something I perceive as a living nightmare, based on our unwillingness to deal with life's realities and a deep sense of greed.
I do understand why artificiality can attract us; either as an escape, a vacation from life or as a study in what is certainly a rather shady part of the human condition. Still I believe that we lose everything when we remove ourselves from nature, and I do hope we will be able to find ourselves as a part of nature again before it is too late. After all, nature does very well without us, but we can not live without nature.
