Philip Carpenter’s Mythos unfolds as a quiet meditation on beauty and impermanence, told through twenty-three colored pencil drawings of botanicals. Each work transforms a moment of observation into a myth of its own—where a weed, a flower, or a forgotten object becomes a vessel for memory and meaning. With precision and tenderness, Carpenter turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, elevating the overlooked to the realm of reverence.
Drawing inspiration from the great tradition of botanical study—from Dürer to Redouté—Carpenter continues this lineage through a deeply personal lens. His practice, rekindled during the solitude of the Covid pandemic, became both a refuge and an offering. In contemplating mortality, he sought to leave behind images of simple beauty—objects that might bring quiet pleasure and serve as reminders of resilience and grace.
In Mythos, realism becomes an act of empathy. Each drawing preserves the fleeting life of its subject while inviting viewers to see with similar attentiveness. Carpenter’s delicate renderings remind us that myth can be found not in grand narratives, but in the fragile, familiar relics of daily life—the tender stories written in every petal, stem, and shadow.