In Bloom: Flowers in Contemporary Art, now on view at Forest Lawn Museum, in Glendale, California, US, through February 15, 2026, brings together a striking array of contemporary interpretations of one of art’s oldest subjects: the flower. The exhibition gathers nine artists whose practices span painting, sculpture, installation, video, and mixed media, creating a kaleidoscopic meditation on beauty, memory, and the persistence of nature in an increasingly technological world.

Though the theme may seem familiar, the works assembled here demonstrate just how elastic and culturally charged floral imagery can be. David Flores, best known for his bold, segmented murals, reimagines the delicacy of blooms through the graphic clarity of his signature style. His pieces—including large-scale paintings and even an anodised aluminium bouquet, play with contrasts of light and dark, positive and negative space, and the tension between street art and botanical refinement.

A very different energy fills the immersive environment created by DABSMYLA, the Los Angeles–based husband-and-wife duo whose whimsical dream-world installations have made them audience favorites. Their Cosmic Flower Shop, a room populated by over 100 glazed ceramic flowers, invites viewers into a playful yet meticulously crafted fantasy ecosystem. This world-building practice blurs reality and imagination, transforming floral motifs into vehicles for narrative and delight.

Collaboration and hybridity also emerge in the joint works of Francesca Gabbiani and Eddie Ruscha. Their new series fuses psychedelic airbrush painting with intricate hand-cut paper elements, producing images that seem to vibrate from within. The duo draws on Southern California’s cactus and floral landscapes as symbols of resilience, renewal, and cyclical change—ideas that echo throughout the exhibition.

Other artists explore the emotional or historical resonances of floral forms. Simonette David Jackson brings the millefleur tradition of medieval tapestry into a contemporary framework, positioning her detailed pen-and-ink assemblage near Forest Lawn’s own medieval stained glass. The juxtaposition links centuries of floral representation, underscoring continuity across time.

Jasmyn Marie, working at the intersection of craft and preservation, encapsulates real flowers in layers of resin, suspending their fragile forms in sculptural stasis. The resulting objects play with transparency and depth, evoking both stillness and drama. Analia Saban, meanwhile, turns to industrial technology, presenting six machine-rendered acrylic paintings that highlight the paradoxes of using mechanical processes to depict organic subject matter.

Kim Schoen’s Oracles, a looped video installation featuring roses encased in spinning orbs, adds a conceptual dimension. With sound works based on Delphic maxims dispersed throughout the museum, the piece contemplates aging, temporality, and the act of divination—subjects that resonate deeply within a memorial-park setting.

Rounding out the exhibition are five monumental paper sculptures by Tiffanie Turner, whose oversized blooms verge on the surreal. Their exaggerated forms, sometimes wilted, stained, or metastasised, probe cultural anxieties about ageing, beauty standards, and the body, drawing viewers into a confrontation with both allure and decay.

As Museum Director and curator James Fishburne notes, flowers serve as “a memento mori; a reminder to remember death and savor life.” Set within Forest Lawn’s historic memorial landscape, In Bloom gains a poignant charge, inviting visitors not only to admire artistic virtuosity but also to reflect on the fleeting, and enduring, nature of beauty itself.