Fleming Cunningham

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EDUCATION

MFA, Photography, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

American Foundations Graduate Fellow, Wake Forest University / Reynolds House, Winston-Salem, NC

BA, English and Studio Art, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

 

SELECT COLLECTIONS

The Polaroid Collection, Wayland, MA
Judah L. Magness Museum, Berkeley, CA
Smith Mountain Industries, Lynchburg, VA
Westminster-Canterbury Inc. Richmond, VA
Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville, VA
Blue Ridge Capital, Charlottesville, VA

For several years, I worked for a florist, cutting thorns from roses, removing yellow pollen from flower stamens, flipping tulip petals inside out, and carefully pushing wire through drooping stems. During these quiet hours, I gained a deep appreciation for the unique characteristics and the marvelous minute details of many flowers and plants. In the late 1990s when I was in graduate school, the predominant images of flowers were photographed with dramatic lighting against a black background. Once I began work in the studio, I wanted to photograph the plants I knew so well in a much different manner, an approach that I have used ever since. Photographing one or two flowers complexly lit from all angles against a plain white background showed off the characteristics that, for me, made them remarkable – the looping fluidity of stems, the subtle gradations or exuberant contrasts of color, sharp needles jutting from a pin-cushion flower head, the beehive texture of a stamen, and the intricate veins inside the smoothest petal.