Lyndall Phelps

Wilberforce Health Centre Commission

Commissioned by the NHS, Hull

The commission was inspired by an important plant collection held by the Hull and East Riding Museum. The ‘herbarium’ was collected during the 20th century by local botanist Eva Crackles, providing a detailed record of the unique flora of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

I chose eight plants from the herbarium, which were collected in the 1950s from World War II bomb sites in Hull; three on Albion Street, where the Hull Municipal Museum (now the site of the health centre) was destroyed by an incendiary bomb, and the other five from nearby locations. The eight designs, repeated in different colours throughout the work, are representations of these dried, pressed and carefully preserved plant specimens.