In Carnations

Dianthus caryophyllus, or the carnation, originates in the Mediterranean, its wild form long transformed through centuries of cultivation. Once five-petaled, it now blooms in countless variations - an emblem of human intervention in nature?

Named by Theophrastus from the Greek dios (divine) and anthos (flower), the carnation’s meanings have multiplied across cultures - love, mourning, gratitude, desire - its symbolism as mutable as its form.

In Nikahetiya’s monochromatic negatives, colour and convention dissolve. Stripped of hue and cultural charge, the carnation becomes terrain - an abstract field where perception and memory are questioned, and the human impulse to assign meaning to nature quietly unravels.

IN CARNATION 28

2020