Queen of Flowers: Sally Tagg

Everyone loves good flower photos, but Sally Tagg’s images go beyond standard close-ups of pretty petals to give new meaning to the nature of Nature.

Story: Sue Linn Photography: Simeon Patience
Plenty magazine: Spring 2007

For as long as she can remember, Sally Tagg has loved flowers. As a young child she often got into trouble for picking flowers on the way to school. Her favourite holiday job was working for a florist.

Later, as a photography student, it was still flowers and nature that excited her most. “What draws me to flowers is that they kind of glow.”

Tagg’s sumptuous images of plants and gardens have starred for many years in leading magazines such as Next and NZ Gardener, and are also in demand for gardening books. The latest, in association with Maggie Barry, is Maggie’s Garden Diary, new out from Random House.

NZ Gardener editor Lynda Hallinan believes Sally’s pictures capture a spiritual element. “Anyone can take a close-up of a plant, but very few photographers can create an image that has it all. Sally has the ability to make an ordinary plant look spectacular, a spectacular plant look breathtaking. She can find something beautiful in any garden. Her images stand as pieces of art in their own right”.

Tagg values her magazine work, which she sees as an important support. And not just financially; “It’s very grounding and it exposes me to things and I might otherwise miss. I don’t work well in an insulated environment.”

Magazine commissions have taken her all round the world to capture gardens in locations as far flung as New York and Japan, but her botanical art is her most important work. She is “absolutely fizzing with excitement” over her latest works, which she describes as “mandala-like explosions of plant life”.

Tagg’s art goes well beyond simple flower portraits, involving manipulation on many levels. “I want to make people go, ‘Wow, how has she done that?’” Increasingly, she has moved into large-scale works for the outdoors.

The most recent examples are on show at the Brick Bay Sculpture Trail at Matakana and the Connell’s Bay Sculpture Park on Waiheke Island.

Her artistic energy has been boosted by moving to a new home with an adjoining studio. Two years ago she moved into a Grey Lynn cottage with a tiny courtyard garden and open verandah that “feels like a tropical oasis”. Fresh white paint and special daylight fluorescent lighting have transformed the former pottery studio.

The living spaces exude the same blend of freshness and beauty that radiate from her art. Tagg has painted two lounge walls a soft, burnished gold which she says looks sensational when her fireplace is in use, making the whole room glow. A collection of vases by Australian artist Amanda Louden began with a gift from her only son Oliver, a doctor of chemical engineering who now lives in Australia.

The mainly white surfaces and polished floors of her home are the backdrop for an eclectic mix of furniture and original art. The overall effect is warm and welcoming, much like Tagg herself.
Her courtyard has a leafy canopy of cherry blossom, wisteria and an old grape vine. So far she has added fairy bamboo and moss plant (Scleranthus), quietly working towards a serene green backdrop for her art. But for now, the studio is where she most wants to be. Layering is a key theme as she works to convey nature’s cycle of renewal and decay. Creating her works can very very complex, from the sourcing of materials through sophisticated photographic processing to highly specialised printing and installation.

Like many artists, she goes to extraordinary lengths to achieve results. Case in point is her story of a recently commissioned work for Kevin Roberts, New York-based CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide. “Think Versace in Hawaii,” was Kevin’s brief for a triptych of 2x2m vinyl works.

Tagg dreamt up a vision of vibrant butterflies and bright tropical flowers.

The butterflies had to be tropical, too. Photographing them at Auckland’s Butterfly Creek would save an airfare to Honolulu, but imported butterflies can neither be taken out of quarantine nor allowed to come in contact with any plant material that has been sprayed with chemicals.

Tagg, her camera equipment and many clean exotic plants made repeated trips to Butterfly Creek’s airport location. After expending endless rolls of film on fluttering wings in a steaming hothouse, she knew she needed motionless butterflies in a controllable environment.

She supposes she must have impressed the staff with her perseverance because they ushered her to their lunch room – and a ‘chilly bin’ full of very dead but flawless butterflies that had come to an end of their natural lives. That smoko room then became her studio, because even dead butterflies cannot be taken off-site. The resulting work was worth the effort; the vivid creatures look very much alive on their gigantic canvases.

“When people ask me how I got them to sit still, I smile to myself. And sometimes I tell them.”

Tagg describes herself as ‘sensitive with a capital S’. Her work is in some ways a reaction to all the bad news around us. She is aware of life’s dark side. She’s photographed that too. But she’s decided “what I want to do in my life now is produce things that are luminous and optimistic. Whatever you focus on, you give attention to, and it grows.”



Reprinted by permission. Copyright 2007 Plenty magazine Spring 2007 published for Hanover Group. Subscribe to Plenty today.

print