Created in 2023, Carnations served as a symbolic introduction or “mascot” for Noor Mahnun Anum’s solo exhibition. Inspired by Clarice Beckett’s Carnations (c. 1923), the work reflects Anum’s long-distance artistic connection to the Australian artist and her enduring engagement with botanical still life, from Dutch traditions to contemporary illustration. The painting depicts pink store-bought carnations in an IKEA vase—a nod to Beckett’s original—and includes a small reverse glass study of Beckett’s work in the bottom left. Surrounding elements from Anum’s studio, like a drying primed canvas, subtly reveal her artistic process.

Carnations opens a dialogue between historical and contemporary still life, exploring the interplay of lived and imagined intimacies. The flowers become a metaphor for transience, artistic lineage, and the bittersweet nature of distance—temporal and geographical. Through visual references to Clarice Beckett and the inclusion of a reverse glass painting, Anum folds time, memory, and homage into a meditation on painting itself. The work reflects on process and ritual, from traditional still life to studio practice. An unfinished second study, abandoned after the real carnations wilted during a trip, underscores the painting’s quiet reflection on impermanence and the fragility of beauty.