Description
Bound Species is an ongoing series Jennifer Latour began creating in her home studio during the first lockdown in 2020. She uses her skills as a special effects makeup artist to construct ‘new species’ of plants from locally sourced fresh flowers and plants. Each piece is its own delicate and surreal creature, a beautiful Frankenstein of sorts.
Jennifer Latour was born in Seven Islands, Quebec, and now works and lives in Vancouver, BC. She is a self-taught artist who has worked internationally in special effects makeup for film and television since 2003 and began practicing photography in 2006. Her love for photography, cinema, sculpture, and creating characters runs through all her work, and has heavily influenced her Bound Species series. While each piece has a unique character and stands on its own, the series as a whole is evocative of the interconnectedness found in nature, and serves as a reminder that all creatures are bound simultaneously by both their similarities and their differences.
“For the past 16 years I have been immersed in a world of making monsters, zombies, aliens and many different forms of prosthetic applications on humans for my work in special FX makeup. When time slowed down round the world early last year one of the only things I could work on from home was still life photography and so I set out to create compositions that reflected my love for form, sculpture, colour and textures while keeping it light, playful and above all unique.” – Jennifer Latour, 2021
Wild Species expands upon the surreal beauty found in each new species Jennifer creates. This time matching a mythological floral sculpture with a natural open air environment. There is a sense of optimism and hope reflected in each image, as Jennifer encourages a greater intimacy with the natural world. Her works inhabit themes of renewal, resilience and a belief in nature’s ability to adapt in extraordinary and unexpected ways. As well as pointing to humanity’s urgent need to step up as guardians of our extraordinary landscapes and ecosystems.
All print enquiries:
tom@opendoors.gallery
+44 (0)7769922824
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Wild Species | Ireland
“I keep coming back to Ireland. From my very first visit in 2003, I was overwhelmed by its raw beauty, friendly people, and varied landscapes. I immediately felt at home and knew it would be a place that I would keep going back to explore. Fast forward 17 years, when I began my floral series, I nearly instantly saw the work being created along its shores.
I must be a sucker for a challenge because it’s now the second time I’ve created my art along the coastline, and it was even more difficult than the first — having been hit in June with a cold front and unpredictable weather off the Atlantic Ocean.
It is for sure a test in patience and endurance, especially when I have a sculpture ready to photograph and a huge gust of wind blows everything apart. But the feeling I get when it all works out makes it so satisfying. I forget the difficulties pretty quickly and jump onto planning the next one.
I hit eight towns in total, from Dublin to Clifden, and when arriving in a new town, I would almost instantly head out to location hunt. I love driving, so location hunting is one of my favourite parts of creating outdoors.
Once the spots were narrowed down, I’d source stems and young trees from local shops and garden centres — sometimes getting lucky with finding wildflowers, and other times only having access to flowers from ASDA supermarkets.
The coastline sculptures took upwards of four hours to create, sometimes longer if needing to move location due to extreme winds or composition changes — and sprinkle in multiple breaks to warm up my hands.
I’ve spent the last five years creating this body of work, and I feel more inspired than ever. I’m driven by a curiosity to push boundaries of transmutation within flora, exploring how I can further manipulate their forms and fuse different species together.
I dream of visiting so many different countries to create my sculptures with their native flora. It keeps me really excited for the adventures to come.”
— Jennifer Latour, 2025
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