Bouquet: Five Artists to Collect
photo credit: Tim Hardy Photography
Some exhibitions announce themselves. Bouquet, presented this spring at the ICA North Artist Pavilion in Encinitas, was more like an unfolding — a show that revealed itself as you moved through it, each work deepening your experience of the next.
The concept brought together five regional artists whose practices engage botanical imagery not as decoration, but as a lens for exploring observation, history, symbolism, and material form. Some works arose from sustained acts of looking — gardens tended over years, plants observed through cycles of change. Others drew from historical traditions or imagined environments shaped as much by memory as by direct experience. What interested me as a curator wasn't a singular argument — it was how five genuinely different approaches could sit alongside one another and form something larger as a whole.
Below is a selection of works from the exhibition. I'm happy to facilitate inquiries on any of these artists directly.
Jean Lowe
Jean Lowe is one of San Diego's most significant contemporary artists, with a practice spanning over 35 years and solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati. For Bouquet, Lowe brought paintings that revisit the theatrical abundance of Dutch still life traditions — lush, knowing compositions that quietly recall the ways value has long been projected onto the natural world. Her work anchored the show with both institutional weight and art historical depth. Lowe lives and works in Encinitas, CA.
Bloemstilleven, 2026
casein on linen mounted on wood panel
72 x 59 in.
Laura Ball
Laura Ball works in luminous watercolor, building environments that move between close observation and something more psychological and atmospheric — organic forms that dissolve at the edges, opening into imagined space. Her work is held in the collections of the Denver Art Museum, LACMA, and the 21c Museum, and she is represented by David B. Smith Gallery in Denver. Ball's paintings are among the most accessible entry points into serious collecting: intimate in scale, sophisticated in intent, and genuinely beautiful to live with.
Fluff, Shimmer, Slime, 2025
watercolor, ink, gesso, gouache, acrylic, colored pencil, and wax on Arches paper
36 x 28 in. framed (30 x 23 in.)
Amy Pachowicz
Amy Pachowicz is a San Diego painter whose practice is grounded in an early academic foundation in archaeology — a background that shows in how she treats botanical subjects: as artifacts, fragments of the natural world suspended in time and laden with memory. Her delicate paintings layer archival references and natural specimens to reflect something enduring in the human impulse to classify and preserve. Pachowicz had a solo exhibition at Oolong Gallery in early 2025, and her work in Bouquet was among the most intimate and searching in the show.
Bouquet II, 2026
acrylic on canvas
48x 48 in.
Rebecca Webb
Rebecca Webb is a photographer and ceramic sculptor based in San Diego whose work has been acquired by the Fort Worth Museum of Art, the Oceanside Museum of Art, and the City of San Diego. For Bouquet, Webb contributed porcelain sculptures that draw from floriography — the historical language of flowers — suspending meaning between ornament and vessel, fragility and permanence. Her pieces brought essential three-dimensionality to the show and offered a conceptual counterpoint to the paintings surrounding them. Webb's ceramics read beautifully in both residential and hospitality settings.
Platonic Emotions, 2025
porcelain, glaze
20 x 11 x 5 in.
Gail Roberts
Gail Roberts is a former Professor of Art at San Diego State University, a recipient of the San Diego Art Prize and a California Arts Council Fellowship, and has completed public art commissions at the Chicago Public Library and the San Diego International Airport. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Oakland Museum. Roberts is best known for her Color Field series — over 130 equally scaled paintings of every flower, weed, and native plant in her La Mesa garden, ordered by hue into a continuous spectrum. The paintings she brought to Bouquet reflect her devotion to sustained observation: nature documented with patience, rigor, and remarkable skill.
Eye Candy, 2024
oil on canvas over panel
35 x 35 in. installed
Bouquet was organized by Page Art Projects and presented as a project of Campana Studios, with support from the City of Encinitas, the County of San Diego Board of Supervisors, and ICA San Diego. March 21 – May 2, 2026, ICA North Artist Pavilion, Encinitas.
Interested in a work?
I place work by each of these artists and am happy to discuss availability, pricing, and fit for your space. Reach out at info@pageartprojects.com.
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