Tussie Mussie

As well as being a pleasing collection of nonsense syllables, a tussie mussie is a small posy of flowers that was used in the Victorian era to communicate secret messages via floriography.

In Victorian floriography specific flowers represented specific things, for example a sweet pea in your tussie mussie meant 'gratitude', and a zinnia meant 'everlasting friendship'. Different combinations of flowers could be used to build up quite complex messages - all without saying a word...

As an autistic person, I can suffer from alexithymia, which is when an individual has difficulty identifying, describing, and expressing emotions. Like the flowers in a tussie-mussie, my flowers say far more than I can, and they are often present in my work to represent my emotional state or to communicate something I am unable to.

Unlike the rigid structure of Victorian floriography, though, my blooms are abstract and untethered. They explode across the canvas in a riot of colour and texture, and are unabashed in their expression.

Think of each one of the paintings in this new collection as a sort of tussie-mussie. A bouquet of flowers acting as my secret messengers, conveying that which is beyond my verbal reach.

Each one communicates something to you, the viewer. Each painting has a message - perhaps it is for you, or perhaps it’s for the person standing next to you. Each painting will resonate with someone who is on the same frequency.

And sometimes, like in a game of Telephone, perhaps the exact meaning gets lost along the way, but the essence always remains.

How do my flowers make you feel?