Mick Hartley

Artificial flowers, birds, and brightly-coloured sweets, put together by photographer Jason DeMarte:

Cowbirds and Cake Sprinkles

Goldfinch – Pink Cord

Blue Mourning

Cardinal Sin

Lickerish

Pokeberry Persuasion

[Photos © Jason DeMarte]

Beautified nature – a sentimental "chocolate box" vision of idealised birds and flowers – taken a surreal step further. Or, as the man says:

“…these seemingly unrelated and absurd groupings and composites begin to address attitudes and understandings of the contemporary experience. I represent the natural world through completely unnatural elements to speak metaphorically and symbolically of our mental separation from what is ‘real’, and compare and contrast this with the consumer world we surround ourselves with as a consequence.”

So there you go. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Pretty, though.