Susan Beech is a paper artist specialising in the making of paper botanicals. Her delicate flowers and botanical sculptures are made under the studio name A Petal Unfolds. In her work flowers climb, writhing upwards, tendrils and stems clinging. There is a sense at times of unruliness and an ability to overpower. In other pieces the delicate fragility comes to the forefront. Each piece is a celebration of nature’s beauty, strength and resilience.
Susan often uses heavyweight crepe paper which she intricately manipulates, expanding on the natural qualities of the paper to create hyper realistic botanicals with the smallest of details. When researching a new piece, Susan uses many different references of real flowers, to single out a particular characteristic or gesture of a flower to exaggerate and tell stories with. Over the years, Susan has taught workshops extensively, including at the Victoria & Albert Museum and Kew Gardens. Her book ‘A Petal Unfolds – How to Make Paper Flowers’ was published in 2022.