Spirits

In her first collaboration with the world renowned Kew Gardens, Los Angeles based artist Maggie West will reimagine the celebrated Spirit Collection through her signature use of saturated color and sculptural light. By illuminating select preserved specimens as luminous portraits, West will reveal both their striking visual beauty and their profound scientific importance. Light becomes a tool of discovery, drawing attention to the meticulous preservation, research, and botanical breakthroughs that define Kew’s global leadership in plant science. This collaboration is designed to spark renewed public fascination with the Spirit Collection, transforming it into a contemporary visual experience that bridges art, science, and storytelling.

PRESERVING BEAUTY

The Spirit Collection at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is one of the world’s most significant fluid preserved plant archives, holding approximately 100,000 specimens stored in spirit. Preserving delicate three dimensional structures such as fruits, seeds, and flowers, the collection plays a foundational role in plant taxonomy, biodiversity research, and global conservation efforts.

Behind the scenes, maintaining the Spirit Collection requires ongoing precision, care, and scientific rigor. Kew’s curators and conservation teams continuously monitor fluid levels, replace aging solutions, repair historic containers, update taxonomy, and digitize records to ensure long term accessibility for researchers worldwide. The work is meticulous and often invisible, yet it safeguards irreplaceable botanical knowledge collected over centuries of exploration and research. The Spirit Collection is not simply a historic archive but an active scientific tool, reflecting Kew’s leadership in plant science and its commitment to protecting and understanding global biodiversity for future generations.

During a recent visit to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, West was given a behind the scenes tour of the Spirit Collection. Encountering the rows of preserved specimens in person, she was struck by their quiet beauty, glass jars holding intricate botanical forms suspended in time. The translucency of petals, the density of seeds, and the subtle distortions created by glass and liquid revealed a visual language that felt both archival and alive. For West, the collection immediately resonated as a space where science and aesthetics coexist.

LIGHT & COLOR

West is known for transforming natural subjects through her distinctive use of saturated colored light. Working with real plants, minerals, and organic materials, she does not alter their form, but instead shifts the way they are perceived. By bathing familiar specimens in unexpected hues and sculptural illumination, West recontextualizes nature without distancing it from its authenticity. Her process preserves the integrity of the subject while revealing new dimensions of texture, translucency, and movement.

This transformation is central to how her work resonates with audiences. The immediacy of color draws viewers in, but the sustained impact comes from seeing something familiar in a completely new way. Specimens that might otherwise be overlooked are elevated into luminous focal points, inviting prolonged attention and renewed curiosity. By reintroducing wonder to subjects people may feel they already know, West creates an experience that is both visually striking and intellectually engaging, encouraging deeper appreciation for the natural world.

ILLUMINATING THE COLLECTION

West will draw on her extensive experience photographing plants under controlled studio conditions to illuminate the Spirit Collection with precision and care. Having spent years studying how petals, stems, and organic structures respond to colored light, she understands how to sculpt translucency, emphasize texture, and reveal subtle anatomical details without overpowering the subject.

In addition to her fine art practice, West worked for years as a commercial cosmetics photographer, developing deep technical expertise in lighting glass, liquid, and reflective surfaces across a wide range of jar shapes and materials. This background ensures she can thoughtfully navigate the optical complexities of historical specimen containers, balancing clarity, reflection, and atmosphere.

If certain jars, labels, or markings hold particular historical or scientific significance, those elements will be managed with care and intentionally highlighted. West’s approach will respect the integrity of each object, ensuring that identifying information and archival details remain legible and honored within the composition. By combining technical rigor with artistic sensitivity, she will create images that both illuminate the beauty of the preserved specimens and elevate awareness of the Spirit Collection’s presence and importance. The project positions the archive not only as a scientific resource, but as a visually compelling testament to Kew’s enduring contribution to plant research and conservation.

This project presents a powerful opportunity to introduce the Spirit Collection to a far broader audience. While the collection is an essential and deeply important part of Kew’s scientific work, it remains one of the quieter and often overlooked aspects of the institution’s impact. By translating these preserved specimens into luminous, contemporary works of art, the collaboration would bring renewed visibility to a fragile archive that typically exists behind the scenes and out of public view. In illuminating a collection that must usually remain protected in controlled, low light conditions, West proposes to symbolically and visually bring it into the light, revealing it in a beautiful spectrum of color that honors both its scientific significance and its extraordinary visual presence.

THANKS FOR READING!

Maggie@maggiewest.co