TEN thousand fresh red roses, which will wilt and decay over time, have been unveiled at a major new show at Scotland's national galleries.
Red on Green by the artist and sculptor Anya Gallacio is part of a new survey of the Paisley-born artist's work at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.
The carpet of roses will slowly decay over a period of months, as will another ephemeral work of gerberas that hang, like a large daisy-chain, in another part of the exhibition, which opens on 1 June.
Gallaccio, now based in California, was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2003 and was considered part of the group known as the Young British Artists (YBAs) in the 1990s.
Her exhibition includes sculptures, obsidian mirrors, a delicate metal tree and several framed pictures.
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Red on Green was first made in 1992 and has been recreated for the new show, part of the NOW series of contemporary art shows, which also features work by Roger Hiorns, Charles Avery, Aurélien Froment, Zineb Sedira and a newly commissioned installation from Peles Empire.
Gallacio said: "I've always wanted to do a show like this, to have the opportunity to show multiple works from different periods of time.
"Then of course, a lot of them had to be remade, so you are visiting things that you haven't thought about for a long time, so the flower works are older, earlier works.
"They have been remade....when I first started working with flowers, some people got upset with me, but I thought it was interesting that these flowers are all farmed: gerberas and roses are grown in polytunnels, they are really disconnected for our ideas of nature, and the cycle of time.
"They are industrially produced, they are farmed, but we still have these romantic associations with them.
"[It is about] What is beautiful? And in terms of our relationship to death, mortality and time, in our everyday life, a lot of things have been sanitised so we don't have to encounter that, think about the most obvious thing about time and life.
"So the roses start off really beautiful, and then they will dry out and mould, they will change, so the emotional state of that work shifts through the process of the duration of the exhibition."
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Simon Groom, director of Modern and Contemporary Art, said: “From the smell and sight of 10,000 red roses slowly decaying to an exploration of our obsession with sugar, NOW 5 offers new ways of seeing and thinking for everyone curious about the world around them.
"We want to create a playful, anarchic, thought-provoking experience for visitors, so expect to see the use of rope, ceramics, x-ray machines, sugar, obsidian, photography and live performances.
"We’re a place for art-lovers, the curious, experience-seekers and families.
"We’ll have our temporary playpark for children once again over the summer period next to the spectacular Landform by the artist Charles Jencks."
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