Valérie Belin, French photographer born in 1964, in Calendula (Marigold), 2010 and Phlox New Hybrid (with Dahlia Redskin), 2010, combines the female face with floral motifs, creating types of hybrids (in the botanical sense) marked by the ambiguity between human and plant, nature and artifice, real and virtual, presence and absence, seduction and coldness.

Einder, 2007–2008, by Marlene Dumas (born in South Africa in 1953) harbors a melancholy secret: this flower arrangement, floating on a sea of midnight blue, was placed upon the coffin of the artist’s mother, who died shortly before. Beyond its beauty and delicate colors, it speaks of memory, grief and mourning.