Paulina Trzonkowska’s ‘Garden of Eden’: 3D Flower Paintings to Cultivate an Eco-Consciousness of Plant Life

Long Island, New York based artist Paulina Trzonkowska creates enchanting 3D paintings of different flower species on canvases of different shapes and sizes. Recently, while working on her piece Garden of Eden, Trzonkowska began documenting her painting process on social media through engaging and interactive bite-sized videos. While doing so, Trzonkowska makes sure to let her viewers know exactly what flower she’s depicting. 

This helps her viewers learn more about different types of beautiful flowers and cultivate a closeness with them, allowing them to appreciate plant life even more and hopefully push them to make small meaningful contributions in their daily lives to help the growth and longevity of these flowers, reflecting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Life on Land.

Garden of Eden is a 36x36 inch acrylic on circle wooden board piece that Trzonkowska began at the start of 2024. She begins the piece by creating 3D flowers out of acrylic on a separate canvas or paper, almost sculpting rather than painting with the medium. The finished flower is then arranged on a large wooden board that acts as a base for the finished piece, slowly creating a flower arrangement on its surface. 

As she fills up the board, Trzonkowska begins to ask viewers of her video to comment on what flowers they would like to see her create next. She also didn’t forget to add and introduce her own selection of flowers to the board, making her viewers feel like they are a part of Garden of Eden’s creation as much as Trzonkowska herself was.

Each time she adds a new flower or plant part to Garden of Eden, Trzonkowska makes sure clarify exactly what plant she was creating. If her followers watch the creation process of Garden of Eden in her videos from start to finish, they’ll be able to identify at least a hundred different species of plants and flowers. Trzonkowska’s videos break down how she creates each plant life’s form, familiarizing her viewers to what they look like.

The familiarity that Trzonkowska nourishes in her viewers leads to a greater appreciation of plant life that they encounter daily. In 2023, the World Economic Forum published a report that chronicled how plant life is dying out 500 times faster than they did before humans walked the earth. The report also shared that 45 per cent of flowering plants, the likes of which are depicted in Trzonkowska’s Garden of Eden, are now at risk of extinction.

Here, Trzonkowska’s Garden of Eden lends a hand by nurturing in viewers, both of the physical piece and the process video, a sense of eco-consciousness that will hopefully inspire meaningful contributions to the preservation of floral biodiversity. She does this while reminding people to appreciate the intricate beauty that exists on the planet along side them.

You can find out more about Paulina Trzonkowska’s pieces by checking their Instagram on @sillyartstuffpaulina.