Planting illustrated history

e journey of a botanical artist and her authentic approach in portraying the Plants of the Qur’an.

Inspiration is an open doorway to limitless possibilities that bloom into new opportunities. That doorway swung wide open for botanical artist, Sue Wickison as soon as she stepped foot in Abu Dhabi’s Grand Mosque. Amazed by the mosque’s stunning flora captured in marble inlay upon the columns and floors, she knew she had to find out more.

“There didn’t seem to be any information. So, then I thought about starting to investigate plants in the Qur’an,” Wickison says.

In need of advice from someone who had worked in the Middle East, Wickison contacted London’s Kew Gardens, where she’d worked as a freelance artist for nine years, leading her to senior botanist, Dr Shahina Ghazanfar, who had already been conducting her own similar research. Their union seemed almost coincidental and soon after their meeting, progress began on the first body of work in history to collate new research and fully coloured botanical illustrations of this group of plants, which would be titled Plants of the Qur’an History and Culture.

It’s hoped that the publication of Plants of the Qur’an in mid-2023 will shed light on the various uses of each plant, some of which are common in everyday life, to “bring history into the present day”. Despite its origin in a religious text, Wickison says the impact of the book would be all encompassing of di erent cultures, countries, religions and spans of life.

“It’s a merging of cultures. It’s a merging of a Northern Hemisphere scientist, Southern Hemisphere artist, Muslim, non-Muslim, [the] two women working on this project.”

Plants clouded in ambiguity require Wickison and Ghazanfar to do plenty of rigorous research for accuracy.

“The word I wrap around it is authenticity,” Wickison says. “I’m trying to be as accurate and as authentic as I can be because you work on it with sensitivity, with respect because it’s a really important body of work.”

She hopes Plants of the Qur’an will o er a welcoming inclusivity to new knowledge and understanding for many di erent people while also raising awareness about the plants’ origin and culture.

Time and accuracy

Wickison does her work from the comforts of her Waiheke abode, surrounded by stunning views and bush. Despite the odd noisy night-time weka, she describes it as “a great place to work”.

The final version of Plants of the Qur’an will be made up of 34 paintings spread across 250 pages, with the production of each piece taking hundreds of hours to make the images botanically accurate and aesthetically pleasing.

Wickison draws strictly from living material to make sure her illustrations are as authentic as can be. To achieve this, she has travelled extensively to capture various plants at di erent stages of their growth.

“You can really see all the details of the plant, all the colours, the finer nuances, the textures. That really helps you understand the plant,” she says.

But not all goes to plan when it comes to living material, especially when the stomach is involved. “Part of my problem was not to eat the specimens that you’re painting, particularly with the dates”, Wickison laughs. “My goodness, fresh dates are absolutely incredible and there are so many di erent varieties.”

With the help of the royal family in Sharjah, one of Wickison’s journeys took her to a desert farm early in the morning to witness the flowering of the Ajwa Al-Madinah date palm. As she took colour notes and photographs, she didn’t realise her time was running out.

“As the sun was coming up and the flowers were opening, the pollen was starting to blow away and they put paper bags over the plants, literally they cover the male and female flowers just to keep them all together,” says Wickison. “It was something I remember because I had to hurry up and make sure the pollen didn’t blow away.”

The outcome turned into one of Wickison’s biggest pieces, scaling over a metre tall, heavily detailed with at least 270 individual dates, each taking almost two hours to complete. Time is a valuable resource in examining plants and their growth to achieve illustrated accuracy.

“It’s showing the overall habit of the plant.

You show the tree itself and then you show the flowers and the fruit, and you’re trying to show every stage of the plant and arrange it in a way that hopefully is aesthetically pleasing as well as accurate,” says Wickison.

A self-funded journey

Wickison has faced many challenges while working on this project, but the most di icult part in its creation has been funding. Plants of the Qur’an has been a self-funded project, with money coming predominantly from loans.

Thousands of dollars are dedicated towards New Zealand’s highest-quality scanners which produce work featured in Te Papa Museum to ensure top level authenticity and respect for the work.

A homage to the Qur’anic plants, she has also chosen to incorporate the wood of the Qur’anic plant Cedar of Lebanon in the framing of the paintings, after she found a timber merchant who had been drying the rare wood for 20 years. For Wickison, quality is key to maintaining authenticity.

To help fund the next stage, Wickison sells her illustrations reproduced upon silk and wool scarves and linen/cotton range of homewares. Her products are sold both online and in a few outlets on Waiheke Island and Wellington.

“I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure the whole project is accurate and as authentic as possible,” says Wickison.

suewickison.com

“It's a merging of cultures... of a Northern Hemisphere scientist, Southern Hemisphere artist, Muslim and non-Muslin...”

Sue Wickison