Shot! The 2026 ROSA Botanical Art Fair
Botanical art is broader, stranger, and more compelling than you might expect. With eye-catching dried flower tapestries, shadowy bronze figures, and an inky artwork that looked like an evil forest, the inaugural ROSA Botanical Art Fair at West Dean was full of surprises.
What happens when one of West Sussex’s finest gardens opens its gates to botanical art? Something quietly special, as it turns out.
West Dean Gardens is already a destination in its own right – a 100-acre horticultural jewel within a 6,350-acre estate in the beautiful Lavant valley that once belonged to Edward James, the eccentric philanthropist, poet and surrealist benefactor whose circle included Salvador Dalí.
The landscape he created is celebrated for its whimsical Spring Garden, its impressive Edwardian pergola, and the walled kitchen garden that contains 13 splendid Victorian glasshouses – among the finest surviving examples in the UK.
Art, though, has always been part of the DNA here. In 1964, James established the Edward James Foundation, which continues to this day through West Dean College, teaching traditional crafts and fine arts from painting and ceramics to woodworking and clockmaking. So when the beginning of May saw the estate host its first ever botanical art fair, it felt entirely natural.
What Is ROSA?
Curated by ROSA magazine, the Review of Sussex Arts is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the county’s cultural economy – its artists, its makers, and its creative community. This four-day multimedia event was all about celebrating, and crucially selling, botanical art.
With gorgeous weather on the opening day and the overflow car parks already in use, it was clearly an attractive proposition. But like me, I suspect many visitors arrived not quite knowing what to expect.
First impressions
The event was modest in scale – it felt like something testing the water – but there was plenty to admire. In essence it broke down into three strands: a marquee featuring artists working broadly within a floral theme; a sculpture trail winding through the grounds; and three rooms inside the house displaying more surreal botanical work alongside the existing furniture and paintings.
As Sir John Lubbock put it back in the nineteenth century:
“What we see depends on what we look for. In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, sportsmen the cover for the game, botanists the flowers and artists the colouring. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not follow that we see them the same way.”
So, what did I see?
In the Marquee
Two artists in the marquee immediately caught my attention, their work sharing a certain quiet kinship.
Olga Prinku creates what she calls bio tapestries – abstract works made from dried and preserved flowers woven onto tulle.
She grows or forages her own species, selecting carefully for colour palette before invisibly weaving flowers, stems, twigs, seed heads, grasses and berries into something genuinely extraordinary.
It’s painstaking, intricate work, and it shows.
Graham Gosling works in layered paper-cut, building up delicate, repetitive daisy silhouettes to create rich textured surfaces.
Some of his pieces reminded me strongly of Dutch graphic artist MC Escher – there’s the same satisfying, almost hypnotic geometry at play.
The third marquee highlight was Tom Lee’s black and white treescapes: large, dramatic works that stopped me in my tracks. From interior representations of trees, it seemed only right to head outside and find the real thing.
The Sculpture Trail
West Dean’s Spring Garden is extraordinary at this time of year, and many of the exotic trees within it were brought back from South America by Edward James himself. Threading through this landscape, a sculpture trail offered further highlights – and a few misses.
The most dramatic pieces were three sets of bronzes by Philip Jackson, a Scottish sculptor whose studio is in Midhurst, West Sussex, just up the road from West Dean.
These sinister black figures wearing Venetian-style gold masks didn’t strictly fit the floral brief. But that almost didn’t matter – they felt entirely at home among the lush greens of the garden, as if they’d always been there.
Surrealist work like this belongs at West Dean, and I think should be a permanent feature of the landscape.
I was also intrigued by Julian Wild’s minimalist blue sculpture, Miami Tree – a single powder-coated steel form from his 2023 series Gathering, which originally comprised twelve vibrantly coloured vertical forms with mirror-polished stainless-steel elements resembling woodland fungi.
Having since seen this photo of the full installation, it was a shame only one piece made it to West Dean. Sometimes you need the whole chorus, not just one voice.
Inside the House
West Dean House – a brooding, flint-faced Grade II listed building with a crenellated roofline – is normally closed to the public. It’s door were open during ROSA and it was well worth the visit.
In the Old Dining Room, laid out on the banqueting table, Kas Williams’ Gothic Bloom was a revelation. The Portsmouth-based mixed-media artist layers shades, tones and transparencies to create complex, tactile surfaces.
Her signature hand-cut printed discs, finished with inks and pinned to create depth and shadow, produced something that looked – from above – like an evil, inky forest. Dark purples and brooding tones where you’d normally expect pastels. For sheer originality, this was the standout piece of my visit. I also liked another more abstract work of hers called Pollen.
Equally memorable, if quite different in mood, was Grasses by Tadek Beutlich, displayed in the Music Room’s huge fireplace.
A burst of colour that from a distance resembled a ball of wire, it was in fact constructed from esparto grass, PVA and paper. I later discovered that Polish-born Beutlich was a pioneering textile artist who in the late 1960s made his home in Ditchling, East Sussex.
This is the thing about events like ROSA – you often only truly appreciate what you’ve seen once it’s over and you start doing a little digging.
On the day itself it can be sensory overload, with multiple objects competing for attention. I like to think I have a knack for gravitating towards the most interesting pieces; the challenge then is finding the most creative way to photograph them, rather than simply recording them as they are.
Room to Grow
I genuinely hope ROSA becomes an annual fixture – and one that grows in ambition each year. The bones are excellent. The location is exceptional. The more there is to see, the more visitors will come, and the more artists it will attract.
Looking ahead, I think it would be good to introduce a few prizes such as Best Individual Entry, Best Newcomer and Peoples Choice. As well as adding prestige to the event, it would be an additional incentive for future artists to attend and provide something for the event to publicise itself.
I’d also love to see the West Dean garden team create a large-scale floral installation in front of the house as a centrepiece – something in the spirit of the elaborate façade displays you see during the Chelsea Flower Show. A singular, spectacular focal point that gives visitors an unmissable moment and sends them straight to Instagram. That kind of visual anchor elevates everything around it.
After all, as any gardener knows, a single flower lets you appreciate individual beauty – but a massed arrangement is what creates a showstopping display. The inaugural ROSA Botanical Art Fair has planted the seeds. Now it just needs time to grow and to bloom.
Behind the shot: All these images were taken handheld mainly with the iPhone 16 Pro and a few with the Olympus OM-D E-M1. As always, it was all about seeking the most interesting subjects, learning more about them and then looking to find the most compelling compositions. Photographed at West Dean Gardens on 1 May 2026.
About the author: Based in Sussex-by-the-Sea on England’s south coast, Gary is a creative writer and image-maker specialising in out of the ordinary portraiture of live musicians, beautiful gardens and automotive exotica.
As a writer, he’s known for his deeply researched cultural deep dives, exploring the stories behind iconic songs, artists and ideas. These include insights into the making of Bryan Ferry’s These Foolish Things, Ghost Town by The Specials and Still of the Night by Whitesnake.
Other songs he has explored include Bowie’s Station to Station and All the Young Dudes, the classic song he penned for Mott the Hoople, as well as Real Wild Child by Ivan, the little known Queen track Cool Cat and Harry Styles’ anthem to positivity, Treat People With Kindness.
He has also penned Simply Irresistible, about the life and times of Robert Palmer, a fascinating biography of George Orwell and the enduring relevance of his prescient novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, as well as Believe It Or Not, which examines the rise of misinformation in the Trump era.
All this and more can be found here on Medium alongside his reviews of concerts and cultural events, plus insightful interviews with musicians such as Royal Blood, Joe Satriani and Wolf Alice.
